Black Flagged (The Black Flagged Technothriller Series) (31 page)

"You should have seen what was going on over there. If we treated anyone like that, we'd have a lawsuit on our hands and agents would be fired," Edwards said.

"Unfortunately, I wasn't there," she said and paused. "Moody said she pulled a weapon on his men?"

"She had a spoon. I saw it on the floor next to her. That's the level of professionalism we're dealing with here. They're just looking to crack some skulls, and they're not about to let a spoon get in the way. I don't know how you deal with this level of incompetence on a daily basis," Edwards said.

"They're fine. I should have been there to run interference," she stated.

"They're not fine, but you're right. You should have been there. I think you should head over and make sure everyone is getting along with my agents," he said.

D'Angelo stared at him for a few seconds, and he couldn't get a read from her.

"Are you sure it's a good idea for me to leave the two of you alone here?"

"I can handle her…what are you saying, D'Angelo?"

"Nothing. I'm just not sure it's safe for the two of you. I'd feel more comfortable if you brought her to the police station across the street. I'll smooth things out for you," she said.

"No way. Her husband killed a cop in D.C. You didn't see the looks she was getting at the house. No way I'm marching her into that building," he said, pointing across the street at the Portland Police Department headquarters building.

"When did you learn this? This is the kind of thing I need to know," she said, irritated.

"I got a call from my task force ops center while we were in the house. Your local boys got the news right about the same time, and it started to get ugly," he said.

D'Angelo stood her ground, shaking her head and grimacing.

"You didn't see it," he insisted.

"That's the point. I wasn't there. I know you don't like dealing with the locals, me included, but this is the real world. These guys don't give a shit where you went to college, or what field offices you've been assigned to in the past. They judge you right on the spot, and you don't get many second chances to make an impression. I'll head over to the house to make sure things are running smoothly. I'd recommend staying here until I get back."

"We might step out to grab some dinner. She hasn't eaten since lunch," Edwards said.

"I'd order pizza. There are sodas in the fridge. You don't want her out on the streets if her husband is wrapped up into whatever happened today. I still think you should be over in the other building," she said.

"We'll be fine here," he replied, and the door to the office slowly opened.

"I hope so. Let me get you those shoes," she said to Jessica, who appeared in the hallway from the spare office.

She wore a pair of dark jeans and an untucked, white-patterned, long-sleeve blouse. She had pulled her hair back tight into a ponytail. Edwards thought she looked incredible and caught himself staring. If he could have seen D'Angelo's face, he would have known that Jessica's security situation wasn't her only concern. He had no idea that his reputation as a misogynistic womanizer preceded him everywhere in the FBI.

"Is everything all right?" Jessica said.

"Absolutely. Why don't you grab a seat at the table," Edwards said, leading her inside the small conference room.

D'Angelo returned a few minutes later with a pair of white running shoes and socks.

"These will look a little clunky with that outfit," she said.

"They'll be fine for getting around in here. I hate walking around in bare feet, especially in an office. At least this office is clean. You should see mine…junk all over the floors. It's really quite disgusting," Jessica said, and Edwards thought she sounded a little less shell-shocked.

"Sounds good. I'll be over at the house. Stay in touch," she said to Edwards.

"Make sure they don't tear the place apart. They did a lot of damage breaking in," Edwards said, figuring the place was already destroyed, but wanting to score points with Jessica.

"I'm sure they won't do any more damage," D'Angelo said and left the office.

As soon as she was gone, Edwards walked back into the conference room with a legal pad and a few pens, which he tossed on the table in front of Jessica.

"Can we get something to eat? I don't know if I'll be able to concentrate. I could use a strong drink, too, if that's allowed," she said, smiling demurely.

Edward couldn't have been happier. The whole evening was shaping up nicely. Jessica had no food in her stomach and didn't appear to have any hang-ups about alcohol. He would delay her request long enough to plant the seed of fear and distrust about her husband in her, then loosen her up enough with alcohol to spill the information needed to track down her husband. A few more drinks after that, and he could offer her some kind of deal to help her husband, for a price. He'd administer a few chemicals at some point later in the evening to remove that memory and leave her in a confused state of exhaustive guilt.

"Let's go over some basic questions, and we can take a walk down into the Old Port to grab a late dinner. My treat."

"Thank you. I know a nice Italian place that stays open late. It's not very far from here," she said.

"Sounds like a plan. So, tell me, did your husband come home later than usual last night, or run any last minute errands that seemed odd?" he said, hoping to catch her off guard with a direct question.

"I don't think…" she said, pausing, "he had soccer practice, but they practice all the time…last night was an extra practice. They haven't been winning many games lately, so it seemed normal, I guess. He was home by eight."

"Can you provide me with some contact information for his soccer team? I'll need to check into this," he said and grabbed the yellow legal pad and a pen.

"Sure. His league plays at the big indoor field near Westbrook. I think it's the Portland Sports Complex. I can give you the numbers of some of the guys on his team when we get back to my house. Was the murder before eight?"

"I can't really disclose any of the details regarding the investigation, but the information you provide is critical to figuring it out," Edwards said.

"Danny wouldn't shoot anyone," she said.

"Mr. Ghani wasn't shot."

"What happened?" she asked.

"I suppose the details will become public knowledge soon enough," he said, leaning in a little for effect.

"It was brutal and efficient. The work of a professional killer. Single stab wound through the neck and into the chest cavity. I've never seen that much blood before at a murder scene. I really hope it wasn't your husband. How familiar are you with Daniel's military background?" he said and looked up into her terrified eyes.

"Danny's not capable of doing something like that. He barely touches knives in the kitchen. He's sort of clumsy with them…" she said, and her voice trailed off.

"What about his military training?" he pressed.

"He was in the navy for eight years or so, but he wasn't like a SEAL or anything. He was on a ship. He'd been stationed in Europe for a few years before we met in business school at BU," she said.

"Have you ever met any of his navy friends?"

"I think so. I don't really know. He doesn't really talk about it much."

"Eight years is a long time not to make friends," Edwards said.

"I guess, but…he got to live in Europe, and…"

"Have you noticed anything strange about him lately?"

"No."

"Calls coming into his phone at odd times?"

"No. Not that I can remember," she said.

Edwards studied her closely. She had emerged from the office reenergized in a fresh outfit, peppy and uplifted, but now she looked glum again. He would continue to pepper her with meaningless questions for another twenty or thirty minutes, occasionally casting a few well-crafted questions designed to raise serious doubts about the man she married and ultimately break down her natural instinct to protect him. A few drinks should seal the deal on Daniel Petrovich…a few more drinks would ensure that the hotel room he reserved in the Old Port wouldn't go to waste.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

10:50 p.m.

FBI Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

A dull murmur had blanketed the operations center for nearly twenty minutes, as agents simply ran their last assigned tasks into the ground. Little to no evidence was found throughout the day at any of the eight murder sites along the East Coast, aside from the fortuitous and purely accidental acquisition of one of their murder suspects, who was no longer in custody.

Of the two Brown River contractors captured in Silver Spring, only one was conscious, and he swore up and down that their operation was a legally sanctioned counterterrorist operation. Of course, he had no evidence to back this claim, other than his insistence that the group's team leader had specifically briefed them prior to departing Brown River's headquarters in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Jeremy Cummings, apparent team leader for the eight men, lay dead in the Natural Foods, surrounded by forensics specialists and police officers.

The FBI raids didn't look promising either. The data processing and analysis team, led by Special Agent O'Reilly, had been busy processing images from over a dozen raid locations, and Sharpe considered shifting other agents in an effort to assist them. So far, nothing immediately useful had been recovered at any of the raid sites, and the trail had gone cold for every one of the operatives on the supplied Black Flag list, except for Petrovich.

His wife had been home when Special Agent Edwards' team hit the house, and Daniel Petrovich had reported to his job earlier that day, which further supported his loose theory that Petrovich was a last minute replacement for the mental patient guy in New Hampshire. The rest of the Black Flag suspects had gone underground over a week before, taking family with them.

Sharpe flipped open his cell phone again and tried to call Mendoza. He knew that cell phones wouldn't be allowed in the Compartmentalized Information Section, especially if they discovered a problem, but he could barely stand the suspense. Mendoza had left nearly thirty minutes earlier and should have arrived at the Sanctum by now. He had a terrible feeling about what they would find.

Special Agent Weber called out from the communication section, one of the few busy areas in the operations center.

"Sir, it's Mendoza," he said, and Sharpe ran across the room.

"Frank, give me some good news. The trail on Munoz has gone cold. Eight heavily-armed men just vanished into thin air," he said.

"Ryan, it's bad over here. The Sanctum was breached, and the file is gone."

"Be careful what you say over the phone, Frank."

"I understand. The only one missing is the colonel in charge. Farrington. He departed the Pentagon at exactly 9:52. Looked like Hannibal Lecter got loose in that room, Ryan."

"What about Harris and Calhoun?" Sharpe said, praying they weren't dead.

"They're fine, as far as we can tell. They were each hit with about a dozen small darts that we assume were coated with something that took them down. Keller and the Pentagon personnel are starting to come around. They weren't hit with any darts, but it's clear that something happened to them. McKie was slaughtered. Same cut we saw in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. One knife wound down through the neck, right above the collar bone," Mendoza said.

"Jesus Christ. We need to see some video. This could be Petrovich," Sharpe hissed.

"No video inside the Sanctum. Prohibited for obvious reasons. No video within the section either. Security says Farrington departed alone and did not log any visitors into the building."

Sharpe could hear yelling beyond Agent Mendoza's voice.

"Hold on, sir…they found something," Mendoza said, and Sharpe's mind entertained any possibility.

He wouldn't be surprised if they found Farrington's unconscious body stuffed in a closet. The Black Flag file said these operatives were trained experts in disguise. His mind was spinning with possibilities when Mendoza broke the spell.

"They just found a janitor tied up in one of the closets. He was coherent enough to confirm that Farrington put him there," Mendoza said.

"This isn't good, Frank, and now we have no way of expanding the search for these operatives. Are they sure the file is gone?" Sharpe said, looking around at his own task force's agents.

"Positive. They didn't seem overly concerned about any of the personnel, until they established what happened to the file. Some kind of special response team from deep inside the Pentagon. I didn't see anyone below the rank of full colonel…hold on, Ryan…shit, I'm being told by some very serious-looking gentlemen that I need to wrap this up. They've locked down the building, and that will soon include all outgoing unsecured communications," Mendoza said.

"Stay with Harris and Calhoun, and contact me when you can. I'm gonna play the last card I have right now and pray it gives us something," Sharpe said.

"Petrovich's wife?"

"It's all we have. Good luck over there," Sharpe said and closed the phone.

He looked up again and saw that O'Reilly was standing near him, waiting for him to finish. Everyone had been waiting. One of the FBI's top agents was injured in the convoy hit, and the status of two agents that had worked in this task force for over a year was unknown. He needed to address Task Force HYDRA and redistribute priorities.

"Hold on, Dana. I'll be with you in a second," he said.

"I found something interesting," she said, and he nodded.

"Everyone! I need everyone's attention for a minute!" he said and walked toward the front of the operations center.

Normally, it could take several minutes to quiet an active operations center, but nearly every agent had been waiting for word about Harris and Calhoun. The rumors started spreading quickly once Mendoza scrambled for the Pentagon, and when Weber uttered Mendoza's name, the place went still.