39
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
CIA HEADQUARTERS
THURSDAY EVENING
Claire Farriger stood at her office window watching rain-bloated black clouds scuttle across a starless sky. She knew it was still hot outside, the humidity near 100 percent, and rain was close now. She should leave soon or she’d get soaked. But she couldn’t. What a mess Nikki had made of something as simple as picking an unsuspecting computer nerd like Justice Cummings off the street. Even at a preset location. It was Nikki who’d insisted her people be the ones to grab Cummings, that they would keep him hidden until he understood fully what was at stake, and they had his agreement. A deal breaker, she’d said. It was the price Claire paid for agreeing to work with amateurs, without field experience, without guts to do what was necessary. Keep Cummings safe? It was ridiculous. Bad enough Cummings had happened upon the chatter about the smart wall before she could shut it down. He could have ruined everything, even exposed her. She could have taken care of it herself, but Nikki and her blasted conscience insisted she and her people could handle it. She sighed. It would have been so much easier for her to arrange a fatal accident. Of course, she hadn’t spoken about Nikki’s massive failure the night before at the dojo. What good would it have done?
She heard a light knock on the door.
“Come.”
The door opened and Alan Besserman walked in. He worked under her as a resident expert in Russian technology and weaponry, and he was Justice Cummings’s group chief.
Farriger started to take a strip off him for keeping her waiting, but she saw his reflection in the window glass. He looked beyond exhausted, his suit rumpled as if he’d slept in it, his shoulders slumped—and something else. There was both fear and alarm in his pale, bloodshot eyes. Obviously neither he nor the half dozen agents she’d assigned had managed to track down Justice Cummings. Farriger closed her eyes a moment. She reviewed her options if they didn’t find him before the inevitable phone call from FBI Assistant Director James Maitland. Besserman had already put him off. Maitland wasn’t a man she wanted to set against her. And of course he’d have Savich with him.
She stated the obvious, without turning, “So I gather you still haven’t found Cummings?”
“No, ma’am.” She saw Besserman push his fist against his palm in the window reflection. “We know he took an Uber from about three blocks from the accident to Alexandria. We went through the neighborhood where he was dropped off, but no one there recognized his photo. He smashed his cell phone, as you know, so no help there.
“We’ve been checking cams in Alexandria, but no sign of him. If he’s alive, why would he hide? Why didn’t he call in? Call me? It doesn’t make sense otherwise.” He paused, then said in an emotionless voice, “I’m beginning to think it’s possible he died from his injuries after striking that car. That wherever he was planning to go in Alexandria, he didn’t make it.”
“Then where is his body?”
“Hasn’t been found yet.”
“Does he know anyone in Alexandria?”
“Not that we could discover. We’re doing a wide grid search to find him—or his body. Still no sign.”
Farriger watched Besserman start to pace her office, a long narrow room. She saw him momentarily distracted by her paintings of medieval tapestries on the walls. Why was Alan being so slow? She nudged him forward. “Alan, there has to be a reason Justice ran. We backtracked him to the Blaze Café—a waiter said he was obviously expecting someone, kept looking at his watch. But he got impatient and left. The bodega cam across the street shows two people walking toward him—and shows him running away. Why was he there? Who were these people he was running from?”
Besserman stopped on a dime, stared at her reflection in the glass. Farriger slowly turned to face him. “Think, Alan. I know you like the guy, you think he’s smart, and I agree he’s done excellent work, but—” She said nothing more, let her silence speak.
Besserman knew what this looked like, and he didn’t like it. He had no idea what had happened, but it couldn’t be what she was hinting at, absolutely not. He said slowly, his voice firm as a judge, “I am as sure as I can be Justice wasn’t at that café to meet with a foreign operative. Justice isn’t a traitor.”
Farriger shrugged. “Alan, I don’t want to think it, either, but we have to consider it. Remember, you told me about the chatter he’d picked up about some kind of breakthrough in surveillance technology on Russian back channels? You brought it to me and we decided it didn’t merit our attention. Well, maybe he lied to you, maybe he managed to identify the source of the chatter about ‘smart walls’ in Russia, and found out more, maybe someone offered him money to funnel them information. There had to be something going on to set this off. Have you finished the forensics on his workstation? His clearance was high enough that even if he didn’t escalate it, he could have copied enough sensitive information to hurt us badly. Let’s hope he’s not trying to be another Edward Snowden.”
Besserman stood tall and squared his shoulders, but still looked rather ridiculous with his mussed hair and rumpled suit. “We’re still checking, but it doesn’t matter, I will not believe Justice Cummings would ever contact a foreign government, would ever turn traitor. Absolutely no way, but if a Russian counterpart tracked his access back to him specifically?” He shook his head. “Still, there’d be no reason to kill him. The information was already in our hands, at least that’s what they’d think.”
He paused, looked pained to even say the words. “All right, let’s assume he contacted someone outside channels, see where it takes us.”
Farriger merely looked at him and waited. Besserman cursed under his breath. He said slowly, “If he believed the people he saw were ours and that’s why he ran, he thought he’d been busted.” He paused, ran his tongue over his lips. “But they weren’t our people. The people he saw outside, it’s possible they had nothing to do with him and he ran because—” He shook his head. “No, wait. I may be going far afield here, but there’s another possible scenario. He was cheating on his wife, meeting a woman after work at the café. It’s possible he ran from the people he saw outside because—” He looked frustrated because no good reason popped into his brain, except “Maybe he believed she’d found him out and thought his wife had hired a P.I. He got spooked.”
She tried not to laugh. “Say you’re right, then we’re back to why wouldn’t he call you after he got hurt? You’re not only his friend, you’re his chief. Or call some other friend? Why, Alan?”
“Because he’s dead, that’s why. He managed to get himself hidden and he died.”
Farriger smiled, a tight smile, rarely seen, but it was there, showing white teeth. It was disappointing Besserman and his crew were taking so long to find the trail of sensitive documents she herself had copied from his workstation—documents they would have to believe he’d copied, something never allowed, an act to trigger a major alarm. Those copied files would incriminate, and Cummings would have no choice but to cooperate with Nikki—at least Nikki believed he’d have to, or be branded a traitor. But what Claire really wanted was Cummings dead. She hoped Besserman was right—Justice’s body would turn up somewhere in Alexandria. It would solve all their problems.
Besserman stared at his boss, found her smile alarming.
Farriger said, “If he were dead, it would be sad, but at least it would mean Justice can’t hurt us. But here’s the thing, Alan, I don’t believe he’s dead, not for a New York minute. Cummings is a chess player. I’ve seen him play. He’s an excellent strategist, his mind razor sharp. He thinks six moves ahead. So, it only follows that if he’s hurt, he’s still in the Washington area, somewhere smart, somewhere off our radar.”
Besserman said, “Obviously he’s not at home, and he hasn’t been there. He hasn’t used his credit cards. One of our agents did spot a black SUV idling in Cummings’s neighborhood, maybe half a block from his house. When our agent finally went to talk to the woman—yes, it was a woman—she gunned the SUV and got out of there fast. Of course, he got the license plate, ran it. The vehicle belongs to a fleet run by the Bexholt Group, the big communications security company. We’ve had dealings with them.”
He’d surprised her, he saw it, but only for a moment, then her face smoothed out again. Had he imagined it?