Inside, he pressed the basement button. There was a slight pause while the computer compared his fingerprint to the digital signatures of all authorized personnel. Suddenly, the doors closed and the car began descending.
After exiting the elevator, DeSantos nodded to the guard who was standing at the entrance to the floor. The stiff, uniformed man returned the acknowledgment with a slight dip of his chin, and DeSantos continued on. The click of his highly polished Allen Edmonds wingtips against the tile flooring echoed as he made his way down the long corridor. The Navajo white walls were barren, save for charts delineating emergency exits and placards on doors with people’s names and ranks.
DeSantos stopped at a room at the far end of the hall and placed the palm of his hand on the glass panel beside the door. An electronic beep sounded, followed by the appearance of a yellow light beneath his fingertips. It moved slowly down to his palm, then faded from view. A computer-generated female voice said, “Please wait while the database is scanned.”
DeSantos, a member of the highly covert Operations Support Intelligence Group, stood at the door awaiting admittance, his right foot tapping repeatedly. OPSIG, buried in the bowels of the Pentagon, was Douglas Knox’s brainchild while he was the chief counsel for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Their unwritten mission statement empowered them to gather the necessary intelligence that would ensure the security and success of covert operations. As a result, the core group of twenty agents with Special Forces training, initially handpicked by Knox, were ready to leave for anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice, either on missions of their own or as support for other CIA operatives. Aside from rigorous refresher training programs that harkened back to their Special Forces roots, much of their time was spent analyzing national security threats in situation rooms such as the one DeSantos was about to enter.
After five seconds had passed, the metallic lock released and a green light flashed above the door. DeSantos walked in, ignoring the high definition screens, electronic charts, maps, and monitoring devices. The room lighting was muted, and a medium-size, oval conference table sat back from the two computerized “tech walls,” as they were called. The deep blue industrial carpet added to the darkness, as if by design. Cool air streaming in through the ceiling panels provided a continuous white-noise background and offset the intense heat radiating from the plethora of electrical equipment that lined the room.
DeSantos sat down on one of the firm, blue ergonomic chairs and tossed his attaché case on the conference table where his partner, Brian Archer, was seated. Archer, rail thin with a military-style crew cut, was focused on one of the many flat panel screens, where a taped news report was playing.
“This our new assignment?” DeSantos asked with a slight Latin American accent.
Archer leaned forward in his chair. “Shh.”
DeSantos removed his glasses and pecked at a few pieces of dust, then replaced the spectacles on his nose. “You couldn’t wait till I got here?”
Archer reached for the television remote and hit PAUSE. The image froze on the news reporter, a twenty-something GQ man primped and primed for the camera.
“You’re late. Should have been here on time. I can’t talk to you and review this material at the same time.”
Archer hit PLAY and the frozen image jerked back to life. “... and after six long years,” the reporter said as he glanced over his shoulder at a federal penitentiary in the distant background, “in approximately fifty-eight minutes, Anthony Scarponi, the most prolific hit man in U.S. history, will walk out of this prison.”
“Can we back up a second, Brian?”
Archer looked at DeSantos and frowned. He hit the POWER button on the remote and folded his arms across his chest. “Fine, let’s back up.”
“Mind telling me what’s going on?”
“If you’d been on time—”
“Fuck it. I’m here. Brief me.”
Archer shook his head, then swiveled in his chair and lifted a folder that rested near his left elbow on the conference table. “You’re such an asshole sometimes, you know that?”
“According to my wife, it’s most of the time.”
“I don’t know why Maggie puts up with you.” Archer spread an accordion folder and pulled out a manila file. He opened it and swung it around to face his partner. “Hector DeSantos, meet Anthony Scarponi, international assassin.” A five-by-seven, black-and-white mug shot stared back at DeSantos.
“Wasn’t this guy one of us?”
“In the broad sense. Specifically, a CIA operative stationed in the Far East, first in China, then the USSR. We had a number of intelligence breaches in the eighties. One of them compromised Scarponi’s cover and exposed him as an operative.”
“Ames?”
“A little early, but possible.”
DeSantos instantly zeroed in on the Aldrich Ames spy case of 1994, when a key CIA analyst, the head of the Soviet counterintelligence branch, was convicted of having sold sensitive national security information to the Soviets over a period of nearly ten years, including the names of CIA operatives stationed overseas. Most of the compromised spies were executed, while a handful simply disappeared.
“But they didn’t kill Scarponi,” DeSantos said. He pulled the file closer to him.
“No. They had better plans for him.”
DeSantos looked up, his eyebrows knitted tightly together. “Better plans?”
“It appears they drugged him pretty extensively. There’s nothing in our file about it, but I did some digging. I think they did some heavy mind-control shit on him.”
DeSantos looked back at the paperwork. “There’s nothing in the file?”
“Looks like it’s been cleansed.”
“But why?”
Archer shrugged. “Obviously, there’s something in there no one wants anyone to know about.”
“We’re not just
anyone.
Besides, how the hell do they expect us to do our job when they don’t give us full disclosure?”
“Knox said this one goes all the way to the secretary of defense.”
DeSantos shook his head. “You’d think they’d know they could trust us after we pulled Lynch’s ass out of the fire two years ago. Wasn’t that enough to prove we’re all on the same side?”
“Nobody’s on the same side,” Archer said. “That’s the fucking problem.” He swiveled his chair and rolled it over to the wall of computers. “Let’s see what Sally tells us.”
“Jesus, Brian, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
Archer entered an ID and password, then hit ENTER. “I already did some exploration in the database before you got here.”
“I promise not to be late next time.”
Archer snorted as he continued to strike keys. “You’ll be late. It’s your way, you can’t help yourself.”
“You’re beginning to sound more and more like Maggie every day.”
“Being partners with you is just like being married, without the sex.”
“Hey, Maggie and I have great sex.”
“That’s why she stays with you. I don’t have that incentive. Keep that in mind,” Archer said with a wry smile.
A beep followed a fingerprint scan, at which point they were granted access. Archer struck a few keys and a large blue-and-gold CIA logo filled the screen. “Welcome to the CIA ISO CSS intelligence database,” Archer said. “As if we didn’t have enough acronyms in government...”
“I thought you gave up hacking.”
“Hacking implies something illegal. I’m just... looking around.”
“Browsing.”
“Exactly.” Archer struck a few keys and a photograph of a much younger Anthony Scarponi appeared on the screen. “Guy’s file from eighteen years ago. Started as an analyst specializing in Asia and the USSR, then was granted operative status five years later,” he said, reading from the screen.
“Whose password and ID are you using?”
“I don’t know. Knox supplied it. Someone he said we can trust. They tied my fingerprints in with the pass codes.”
DeSantos shook his head. “I still think this could come back to bite us in the ass if we’re not careful.”
“Then we’ll watch our back,” Archer said slowly as he scanned the dossier in front of him.
“You were right,” DeSantos said, pointing to the screen.
“About what?”
“The drugging.” DeSantos’s finger moved across the text. “Scarponi’s whereabouts were unaccounted for sometime after 1982, but he was located by a small group of Delta Force ops that went in to find our missing people. He was sighted on a Chinese research compound in 1984. The Mao Institute. Our ops were unable to approach him.” DeSantos looked over at Archer. “Knox was in charge of the inquiry on that mission.”
“That’s interesting.”
“Isn’t it.”
“Mao Institute,” Archer said. “That’s the one that’s doing biological weapons research?”
“Among other things.”
“Wonder where that leads,” Archer said.
“Right to the secretary of defense, I believe is what you were told.”
Archer gave DeSantos a sideways glance, then turned back to the monitor.
“Maybe this is our answer,” DeSantos said, reading from the screen. “Knox headed up a covert international task force that was assembled to identify and locate the assassin known as the Viper. In 1991, Knox’s task force identified the Viper as being ex-operative Anthony Scarponi. He assigned a former SEAL, FBI agent Harper Payne—”
Just then, the blue NSA eagle crest filled the screen, followed by large red letters: “INFOSEC password has expired.” The monitor flashed, and the CIA logo reappeared.
“Shit. What happened?”
Archer struck a few keys and logged off the system. “Sally got a little tired.”
DeSantos’s jaw was clenched. “You think someone was monitoring us?”
“It’s the CIA, Hector. Someone’s monitoring everything.”
“We should have printed the file.”
Archer nodded. “Next time I will.”
“If we can get into the database next time, and if the file hasn’t been purged by then.”
They both sat there for a moment staring at the blank monitors.
Finally, Archer leaned back in his chair, pulled a piece of Juicy Fruit from his pocket, and popped it in his mouth. “So what does all this mean?”
“It means that we don’t know shit about our assignment.” DeSantos slammed the manila folder closed. “It means that we’re purposely being kept in the dark. By the same people who gave us this file.”
“Knox gave it to us.”
DeSantos reclined in his chair and rocked it gently back and forth on its spring. Finally he said, “Then I think we need to get more information from Knox before we put our asses on the line.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Archer said, lifting the telephone handset.
DeSantos pushed the folder aside and shook his head. “I can see it now. This assignment is gonna be totally FUBAR.”
Fucked up beyond all recognition.
Michael Chambers sat down at the edge of the cold pavement and tried to catch his breath. Every muscle ached, his heart was pounding, and he was beyond hungry. He felt as if he’d just finished a triathlon.
He had awoken at sunrise, as the one-hour nap he had planned to take had become a twelve-hour slumber. He decided it was best to continue on without the stolen Tracker, so he removed the license plates, shoved them in the glove box, then sent the empty SUV careening over the embankment.
He popped another two Excedrins—realizing that he needed more sustenance than just pain pills—and started hiking along the sharply sloped road. After an hour’s walk, he sat down to allow his body a short rest. Amidst the tall pine trees on both sides of the roadway—the hill extended above the road as well as below it—he saw a car struggling up the steep incline.
Chambers stood up and raised his arms above his head, waving rapidly. But as the car approached, he could tell it was a dark sedan, much like the ones he had seen pass him last night on the way to the gas station. He turned and looked up the roadway in the opposite direction, hoping to see another car, another way out. But there was none.
As four men in suits got out of the car, Chambers backed away from them, wishing he could disappear into thin air. But there was nothing he could do.
There was nowhere left to run.
Michael Chambers sat in the backseat of a dark blue Crown Victoria sandwiched between the two men who had corralled him on the roadway. In the front, another two men in navy suits sat ramrod straight, facing the front windshield.
All four were clean-cut, Chambers noticed, and they were all in their late thirties or forties, graying slightly at the temples. He had sat there for fifteen minutes, waiting for one of them to talk. But as the ride wore on and they remained silent, he began to realize that something was not right.
“Look,” Chambers said, “am I under arrest?” None of the men answered him. “You’ve got the credit card back. It was an honest mistake.” He looked at the two human bookends on either side of him. “If you guys aren’t mall security, then who are you?”
Finally, a reaction—the driver’s eyes found the rearview mirror, glanced at the man to Chambers’s right, and squinted, as if he was confused about something. Chambers felt like verbally echoing that sentiment when suddenly the driver spoke.
“You don’t have to keep up the front with us. We know who you are, and I can assure you we’ve taken steps to look after your safety.”
“My safety—” Chambers said as the car pulled up to a security booth outside a building somewhere in the metropolitan area of Washington, D.C. The guard, whose uniform said FBI POLICE, took a piece of paper and a small leather wallet from the driver. They exchanged a few words, and a moment later the large red blockade marked with the word STOP began to lower into the roadway. They drove over it and proceeded down the ramp into the underground parking garage.
Chambers was taken up two different elevators, down an impressively paneled corridor, and into a room that overlooked the Potomac. It was a spectacular view, one that captured his attention as he gazed out over the immaculate white limestone and granite buildings that sat like Monopoly pieces on a playing board. Only in this case the game was politics—and power, not real estate, was the coveted commodity.