Brown nodded. “So Dabney’s weak spot was his daughter. He thought she was in danger and maybe he moved faster than he wanted to. Or else he had stopped spying and was rusty. Either way, he seeks out an old contact to do the deal to h
elp Natalie. But we caught on to it this time. But too late to stop him from selling the secrets and then killing Berkshire and then himself.”
“Well, another factor that was different was that Dabney knew he was dying,” said Bogart.
“We’ve already speculated that maybe by killing Berkshire and then himself, he was trying to make amends for all the wrong he’d done over the years,” added Jamison.
Bogart looked over at Decker. “What do you think about that?”
Decker didn’t answer right away. When he did his tone was distant, as though he wasn’t even speaking to them.
“It all makes sense, but I’m not convinced it’s what happened.”
“But why not?” asked Brown. “Why don’t you think it’s the right theory?”
“It leaves too many questions unanswered—principally, who ambushed me and took the flash drive? And who killed Cecilia Randall? Because I think it may be the same people who set up Walter Dabney to steal the secrets to rescue his daughter.”
“Well, it could be the spy ring that had worked with Dabney in the past,” said Brown. “Let’s say he stole secrets for years but then retired. They weren’t happy about that, but if they went after him he could retaliate and blow their cover. But then Natalie gets in trouble gambling and they see a way to manipulate him into spying again. If he believed she owed ten million dollars he would know that the secrets he would have to sell would be major ones. And they were. He provided a back door into our secure databases.”
“And you’re sure about that?” asked Decker.
“What? Yes.”
“How can you be?”
“Because we traced the stolen information to Dabney. He had access. His passcodes were on various entry points, entry points that he knew because of the work he did with DIA.”
“It couldn’t have been someone else at his firm?”
“There was also a biorhythmic security threshold, Decker. It was Dabney, plain and simple. It was a complicated electronic trail, which is why we didn’t get to him before he accomplished what he set out to do.”
“So the recipients of this information have had the backdoor access for a while now?”
“Yes.”
“And they could have learned certain secrets already?”
“Undoubtedly they did.”
“Any in particular of special importance?”
“They’re all important!”
“Granted, but anything really important come to mind?”
“I already told you that it included overseas assets. And as I said, a number have already been killed.”
“Anything else?”
She sighed and thought about the question. “It wasn’t all having to do with DIA, actually. There was information involving other agencies—NSA, CIA, internal reports from the Joint Chiefs, DEA, even the FBI.”
“Having to do with what?”
“Having to do with things you’re not cleared for, but in the spirit of cooperation, I can tell you they had to do with joint agency ops in the Middle East, the hardening of several facilities, the strategies to be employed with ISIL, intel from the war in Syria, and Russia’s intentions toward the Baltic states and NATO’s responses thereto. Quite the assortment, actually.”
“And they could be acting on any of these,” said Decker. “Because you said the chatter mentioned Dabney and that a threat was imminent?”
“Exactly. It’s a lot of ground to cover. Too much, in fact.”
Bogart said, “But we were told at the White House that the attack would be here, in the United States.”
“And I’m not saying that intel is wrong,” said Brown. “I just have no way to confirm it.”
“Berkshire was not Middle Eastern,” said Decker. “And yet the chatter was all in Arabic.”
Brown said, “Well, the Russians could be working with factions in the Middle East. Look how involved they are in Syria right now. They want to be a regional power, and then build on that to become a superpower again. If we get distracted by an attack on our country to become even more isolated, it allows for a vacuum that Moscow could fill over there.”
“I could see that strategy working,” said Decker.
“Any recent chatter?” asked Bogart.
Brown shrugged. “We haven’t heard the name Dabney used again, but we’ve learned from NSA that the same source where the chatter originated is increasing in frequency. In our experience that means things are building to a head. When that chatter ceases it means the attack is about to take place. At least that’s been the case in the past.”
“So when they go silent, that means the bomb is about to go off?” said Decker.
“Yes.”
“Then let’s pray for chatter.”
CHAPTER
72
DECKER WAS RUNNING. Only not in real life.
In a dream.
He wore the uniform of the Cleveland Browns. His twenty-two-year-old self was sprinting down the field on opening day of a new NFL season. He had made the team as a rookie walk-on due to his special teams ability, which largely meant running with abandon and throwing your body at other similarly sized young men with a recklessness bordering on insanity.
Then out of nowhere had come the hit. The blindside plastering that had lifted him off his feet, knocked his helmet from his head, and tossed him down three feet away, unconscious and, though no one knew it at the time, dying.
And when he awoke in the hospital the Amos Decker who had once inhabited his body was no more.
He had been replaced with pretty much a complete stranger. As different from the original Amos Decker—emotionally and mentally—as it was possible to be.
With this last fragment of the dream ricocheting through his brain like a fired round, Decker opened his eyes and sat up, breathing hard, sweat bubbling on his face though the room was cool.
He stared across the darkness of his room. Outside he could hear car traffic, and a few moments later the throaty roar of a plane doing its climb out after lifting off from National Airport. Some rain drizzled at his window.
Still, he stared across the room, his thoughts remaining on that football field. On the person he used to be. As precisely perfect as his memory was now, he couldn’t wrap it around the young man from twenty years ago.
I can remember who I was, just not with any real accuracy. How ironic is that?
He turned and looked at the doll resting on his nightstand. The one like Molly used to have. Only this one had probably been used for espionage.
He lay back down and in his mind started parceling things.
He had many strings in hand, but none that seemed paramount or more capable of leading to an answer than its neighbor. He could sense that all they were doing was running in circles, never proactive, never ahead of the curve.
He was a detective and a good one. He had solved lots of cases over the years, but few as inscrutable as this one. He had told Brown that maybe they were looking at this the wrong way round,