Betrayal (16 page)

Wiley chortled as he stepped through the doorway. Then he gave her a single, soft kiss on the cheek. He never did that when they were dating, she noted, kiss her while they were standing up. She figured it was his subconscious aversion to having to tilt up his head.

Cassi procrastinated receiving news of her own fate by preemptively asking about Wiley’s. “So, is it going to happen? Will President Carver offer you the job?”

“I have no idea what the President intends,” Wiley said dismissively. “Mind if I take a seat?”

“Of course,” she said, leading him to the armchairs she had repositioned before her indoor waterfall. This was her new favorite sitting spot, now that the view of the playground was out.

She had a bottle of Chablis cooling in an ice bucket. She wished she had thought to turn on music as she poured them each a glass. The silence was awkward. “Cheers.”

“I’ve come with good news,” Wiley said without taking a sip. “The FBI is not going to force you out. In fact, I’ve already got your new assignment.”

Wiley’s words seemed to open a curtain, and Cassi felt sunshine come streaming into her dark world. “Oh, Wiley, that’s wonderful. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

Wiley spread his arms and bowed. “Anything for you.”

Oh, if only that were true, Cassi thought. “What’s the assignment?”

“Well, it’s an unconventional role—for political reasons—but I’m sure you’re going to like it.”

“An unconventional role,” Cassi repeated, not liking the sound of that. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“Two children died, Cassi, so it’s going to have to look like you’re being punished. Officially you’re going to be swept aside into a back-office research role.”

Cassi wanted to protest that it wasn’t fair, that Masha and Zeke’s deaths were not her fault. But to be honest she could not even convince herself. She had to consider herself lucky to be getting anything but sacked. In fact, she realized, lucky probably wasn’t the appropriate word. Wiley must have gone to bat for her big time. “And unofficially?”

Wiley brightened. “I know your passion lies in counterterrorism, so that’s what you’ll be doing. In fact, you’ll be in charge of a very important case.”

Cassi felt a surge of warmth growing in her belly. That sounded wonderful—too good to be true. Alarm bells started to sound but she stifled them. “A terrorist case?”

Wiley nodded and dove in. “A terrorist case. And a highly classified one at that.”

“And I’ll be in charge.”

“You will, although it’s just going to be a one-woman team.”

Cassi bit her lower lip and considered this. Although physically surrounded by others while working, she had always managed her negotiations alone. “I’m okay with that. Tell me about it.”

“In a nutshell, a terrorist has begun assassinating US Defense Contractors. Your job is to catch him.”

“How can that be a one-person task? Is this just a theory I’m to prove?”

Wiley shook his head gravely. “Last Friday the CEO of Defcon4, Mark Drake, was murdered.”

Cassi nodded. “I saw that on the news. Someone put a bomb under his car. They said a major investigation was underway by both the local police and the FBI, on account of his being a prominent British citizen.” Cassi read Wiley’s expression and her mind raced ahead. “But that’s not what’s really going on, is it?”

“It is as far as the public, the police force, and even the FBI are concerned. But no, it’s not. Believe it or not, I got a call from the director of the CIA. It seems they have a mole highly placed within al-Qaeda who says that Drake’s death was an al-Qaeda hit. In fact, that mole told us that Drake is just the first of many. Apparently al-Qaeda has hired a professional assassin, and they’ve given him a list.”

“A hired assassin,” Cassi interrupted. “Why would al-Qaeda hire an assassin?”

“You’re the profiler. At least you used to be. Consider the profile of the average assassin, and then compare it to the average al-Qaeda operative. I’m sure you’ll see there’s quite a difference.”

“A difference that circumvents half our screening and security measures,” Cassi thought out loud while nodding appreciatively.

“The CIA mole has no idea who the assassin is, but he was able to get us the names of his next two targets.”

Cassi’s adrenaline continued to surge as issues and ideas began colliding in her head. This was getting very deep very fast.

“Here’s the rub,” Wiley continued. “The CIA is desperate to protect the fact that they have a mole. In fact, sacrificing the next two victims is a price that they are willing to pay. They need their source in place to give them notice of the next mass attack, the next 9/11.”

Cassi was beginning to understand. “So you can’t let the public know that you know Drake’s death was the first in a series of planned terrorist assassinations.”

“Correct. And it gets even more complicated than that. The CIA mole says al-Qaeda has a highly placed source within the FBI, although again he doesn’t know who it is. That leak led to the ambush that killed your brother. Al-Qaeda knew that Team Echo was coming.

“Needless to say, I can’t let anyone in the agency know what I’ve just told you. Furthermore, whoever the mole is, he is willing to kill to protect his identity. Commander Potchak was murdered by the same means as Drake, presumably because he saw or heard something that made the mole uncomfortable.” Wiley stopped talking and raised his eyebrows, waiting for her reaction.

Cassi struggled to separate the flood of emotion from the wave of information. She would digest the facts later. For now, she was just pleased to understand her new role. “Thus you need a low-profile, one-person team. Someone you know you can trust. Someone you can reassign without raising any alarms.”

“Precisely.”

“So what, exactly, am I to do.”

“The first thing you have to do is meet with the next two people on the assassin’s list and make them hard targets. They, like Drake, are both defense-corporation CEOs. One is Mark Rollins, CEO of Rollins, and the other is Mark Abrams, CEO of ASIS. Wall Street knows them collectively as The Three Marks.”

The irony of the moniker was not lost on Cassi. She nodded. Her task sounded simple enough.

Reading her mind, Wiley said, “It’s not going to be an easy sale. First of all, I can only send you, which implies that the FBI is not overly serious. And of course you can’t let them know that they’re on a list or even that we have inside knowledge, for the reasons already mentioned. But at the same time you have to get them to take this seriously enough to agree to some highly inconvenient lifestyle changes.”

“So basically, you’re placing their lives in my hands, but they’re not allowed to know it.”

“Precisely.”

Cassi thought about what that would mean in practical terms. She did not know anything about Rollins or Abrams, but she could guess that billionaire CEO’s would be arrogant and cocky and would have a child’s immortality complex. Her assignment was not going to be easy. Then she thought of Masha and Zeke and decided that saving these two might be her best chance to begin making amends. She drew her gaze from the slate waterfall back to Wiley. “I’ll get the job done.”

“I know you will, Cassi. That’s why I was thrilled to come by the opportunity to give you this job. I think it’s a perfect fit, given our circumstances.”

“Any suggestions on where I should start?”

Wiley opened his briefcase and withdrew five thick folders. “This is everything we have from Potchak’s and Drake’s murder scenes, as well as background information on Drake, Rollins, Abrams, and their companies. You are to use this to create a profile on the assassin and then use that profile to make specific security suggestions to Rollins and Abrams—all the while being careful not to betray the fact that we have a source.”

Cassi nodded. She understood. “Thank you Wiley. I’m your Agent. What’s the timeframe for the profile and plan?”

Wiley flashed her a guilty look. “I hope this leave has given you a chance to catch up on your sleep, because you may not be getting much until you catch the assassin. You’re presenting to Rollins and Abrams in Wilmington—tomorrow afternoon.”

Cassi grimaced. Profiles usually took weeks to compile and then got sent off in the mail. She would be hopping on an airplane to present hers in less than twenty-four hours. “Tomorrow afternoon. Great.”

“That’s not all,” Wiley continued. “Once you’ve gotten Rollins and Abrams squared away, your real job begins—”

Cassi raised her chin.

“You’re to use that profile to anticipate the assassin’s moves … and lure him into a trap.”

Chapter 25

Chesapeake Beach, Maryland

S
ITTING
ON
A
dark porch in a white wooden rocker, Odi nursed a beer and stared at the glow of his laptop computer screen. He hoped Ayden would come on line as promised. He had a lot to get off his chest.

He was holed-up in his Aunt Charlotte’s summerhouse. He found it the perfect place to plan his moves and hide out between hits. There were few residents on her stretch of the Chesapeake Shore this time of year. Most sought warmer climes, including Charlotte herself. She was in Phoenix.
 

He drew comfort from the surroundings. Their familiarity was a soothing balm, given that everything else in his life had changed. His family had enjoyed many a summer there with Charlotte when he and Cassi were kids. Her cottage was a modest, wooden structure built largely by his uncle in the mid-sixties. Odi had not noticed back then just how modest it was. He reflected on how wonderful it was to be an unspoiled kid. He closed his eyes, leaned back in the rocker, and listened to the rhythmic clang of a neighboring warning buoy. As a kid he had fallen asleep to that sound a hundred times.

A different sound interrupted his reverie. His computer had chimed ta-dong, indicating that Ayden had arrived on line. Odi leaned forward and pressed send, dispatching the message he had prepared.

Two minutes later, he heard a friendly zzhing announcing the arrival of an instant message. He looked down and read Ayden’s reply. “Saw your video. Unbelievable. That Creamer of yours is powerful stuff!”

Odi gathered that the gory shots had not repulsed his friend. That was no surprise, his being a doctor in a violent region, but it was still a relief. Ayden had helped to put together the general plan, but Odi had not decided on his tactics before leaving Iran. His e-mail package to Ayden contained a brief explanation of the Creamer along with ten seconds of highlights from the Potchak video clip. “So you approve?” He typed.

“Sure. Where did you get the explosive?”

“I made it,” Odi typed with some pride. “I went back to Johns Hopkins and used the same lab where I invented the stuff—working at night, of course.”

“No risk of getting caught?”

“Naw. I’m still young enough to be mistaken for a graduate student if someone sees me, and the graduate chemistry lab has used the same formula for their door code for years.”

“Formula?”

“It’s the square of the numeric value of the month converted from Centigrade to Fahrenheit.”

“Pardon?”

“This is October, the 10th month. So the code’s 212. That’s 10 squared times 9 divided by 5 plus 32.”

“Okay ... Anyway, your explosive is brilliant. Brilliant and chilling.”

“Thanks. Let’s hope that it’s chilling enough to catalyze the desired reaction.” Odi leaned back from the keyboard feeling better for having shared his experiences. His newfound sense of relaxation and relief made Ayden’s next message all the more disturbing.

“You’re going to have to kill them all. It’s naïve to think that those kings are going to walk away from their thrones. That isn’t the way of the world. Never has been. Never will be.”

Odi tried to think of a clever retort. It only took him a second. “Attorneys make deals every day for the sentence of life behind bars when the alternative is the electric chair or the needle.”

“Nice analogy,” Ayden replied. “But it only applies to people who have been caught. These guys don’t consider themselves caught yet. Your proposition is nothing to them but an invitation to a game of cat and mouse.”

“I’ve got claws.”

“Maybe, but kings like these are going to consider you a mouse.”

Odi felt his excitement deflating. He thought he had found a way to render true justice, to get the truth out and put the bad guys behind bars. In fact, judging by the rich-and-famous cases that had made it to court in recent years, he considered his solution to be the only way that an American billionaire would ever be exposed to justice. He owed his fallen comrades that justice. He pounded his response into the keys. “One way or another I am going to dethrone those kings—starting tomorrow night.”

Chapter 26