Lethal Force (15 page)

“Good eye.” Lori's mother fired up a laptop, found the video file, turned it for the two of them to view, and then hit play.

Jake watched the video of the two men at the front door, them going inside, and then the short pass as they left the house.

Shaking his head, Jake said, “Those weren't FBI. Not even close.”

“That's what I thought,” her mother said. “That's why I pulled my Colt forty-five on them.”

“Then who were they?” Lori asked.

Jake was concerned now. “Part of the crew who kidnapped me in DC and followed me to Montana. May I use your laptop for a minute?”

Lori's mother nodded. “It's on the internet if you need that.”

In just a few seconds he pulled the flash card from his pocket, encrypted the contents, and forwarded them in a zipped folder to his server in Europe. He then sent a copy of the video to a friend at the Agency, along with a few instructions. He set up a meeting for the next day to discuss the weather. His contact would know that meant he had something extremely important to pass along. Then he made sure there was no record of his access on the laptop.

When Jake was done he said, “Mrs. Franks, I hate to say this, but you need to take a little trip.”

“I ain't goin' nowhere.”

“These people are dangerous, ma'am,” he said.

“You mean like you?”

Lori interjected. “Except Jake is one of the good guys. These are killers.”

“And they won't think twice about going through you to get to your daughter. You put both yourself and Lori in jeopardy if you don't take off for a while. You must have someplace to go.”

Lori reached across the table and grasped her mother's hand. “Mom, go to your sister's place in Helena.”

Mrs. Franks shook her head. “I don't know. She smokes like a chimney. And she's got those two little shitty dogs.”

“You mean shih tzu?” Lori asked.

“No, they pretty much shit all over the place.”

“Better that than a bullet in the head,” Lori said. “Go stay with Aunt April.”

All three of them got up and Lori hugged her mother again. This time Jake actually hugged the woman back. “Nice to see you again, Mrs. Franks. And I'm sorry to hear of Bob's passing.”

The mother looked confused. “You knew Bob?”

“Yes, ma'am. We graduated together.”

Mrs. Franks shook her head. “You're
that
Jake Adams? You played football with Bob. You were friends.”

“Yes.”

“Well I'll be damned.” She turned to Lori. “And you called Bob's friend to testify before your committee? Shame on you.”

“I didn't have a choice, mom.”

“It was entertaining. I saw you on O'Reilly that night also. You should come out with a book. You could make a lot of money shilling it on those shows.”

True. But most of what Jake knew would remain classified for a long time. “I don't know if I have the stomach for that, Mrs. Franks.”

Lori's mother hugged him again and then pulled away. “I know. And next time I see you, you better be calling me Jane.”

“Okay.” Jake headed outside and got to the SUV, leaving the two women to say their goodbyes. While he sat behind the wheel of the SUV, he sent a quick coded text to one of his contacts at the Agency, saying he was heading to DC today and needed to set up a meeting. Although he had just sent an e-mail with similar info, he should have gotten a response by now.

Lori came over and got into the passenger side, an uncertain expression on her face.

“Everything all right?” Jake asked.

“Yeah. My mom is just. . .” She struggled for the right word.

“I understand. Will she go visit her sister?”

“Yes. She'll leave within the hour. Just needs to pack a bag.”

“You want to wait for her? That's a pretty long drive on bad roads.”

“She's been driving these roads all her life. And she's got my dad's truck.”

“Where is your dad?”

“Don't get me started.” She let out a heavy sigh. “He's somewhere in Costa Rica. A whitewater river guide.”

“Seriously? Isn't he a little old for that?”

“I have no idea. He left my mom about five years ago and I haven't heard from him since then. Not sure if I want to at this point.”

Knowing not to push the subject any further, Jake turned over the engine and started off toward the airport. On the way there, he first dropped off his weapons at his storage unit. He couldn't fly with them. While he did so, Lori called the airport and got them each a ticket on a flight to Denver and then on to DC.

Jake and Lori had traveled most of the day, getting into DC in late afternoon, just as the sun receded past the Beltway. He said his goodbye to Lori, who was picked up by her wary driver. Jake guessed the guy was still pissed at him for putting him into a sleeper hold and then stuffing him into the trunk of the limo. Lori had seemed somewhat subdued by their separation, saying again that she didn't really want to spend the rest of her break on an official junket to South Korea. They agreed to stay in touch but Jake didn't think they would. Sure they had connected on some level. Perhaps that was based on their past. Maybe there had been a spark of some sort. He might never know for sure. She was back to her job in Washington and he was back to. . . That was the problem. He wasn't sure about the direction of his life anymore. Despite what had happened in Montana, Jake was certain that this case wasn't over. Besides having to drop off Professor Tramil's research to his old friends, he would still have to find out who was trying to steal the man's work. Who had kidnapped him and killed those people in Montana. He guessed they had only kept him alive in DC so he could lead them to Tramil. And he had. Kind of.

Now, after hanging out and drinking a couple of beers at a Dulles Airport bar, Jake took an airport shuttle bus to the Ritz-Carlton in Tysons Corner by McLean, Virginia. After staying in a remote cabin, he felt the need to pamper himself.

He took a shower and then settled onto the comfortable bed, waiting. But he didn't have to wait long. He might have caught twenty minutes of rest before he heard someone approach the door. Then there were two quiet knocks, a pause, one more knock, a second pause, and then two quick knocks. He smiled and went to the door, not even looking through the peep hole.

Standing in the hall, a subdued smile on her face, was his old friend Toni Contardo. They had worked together years ago in the CIA, had been lovers on and off, and now were. . .well, he wasn't sure. But he guessed they were just friends. Toni was now working special projects directly for the CIA Director, Kurt Jenkins.

Toni glanced in both directions in the hallway. “You gonna let me in?”

He let her pass and she plopped down on the crumpled bed, feeling the sheets. Her eyes scanned the room. She hadn't lost a step in her training. She was seeing if he was alone.

After closing the door, Jake stood in the center of the large room and asked her what he already knew. “How'd you find me?”

She laughed. “You left a trail of bread crumbs like a civilian.”

“I am a civilian.”

“Yeah, right. You couldn't be a civilian if you tried.” Hesitating, her eyes bore right into him. “You booked the flight with one of your real Visa cards, and this hotel room with the same card.”

“Which you had flagged.”

Toni shrugged. “You could have just come by my office in Langley.”

“You have an office now? I thought you were just special projects.”

“You know what I meant,” she said.

He paced across the room and stood at the window, checking out the glow of the city in the distance.

She got off the bed and looked in the mini-bar. “Wow, that's some top shelf booze. You're living right now, Jake. But I guess you can afford it.”

Jake knew she knew what he had made on a few of his last cases. Yeah, he could afford a nice hotel once in a while, but that really wasn't him. He preferred a mountain lodge over any city hotel. Which is why he had stayed at his apartment so long in Innsbruck. But now even he wasn't sure where he belonged.

“You got something for me I understand.”

He turned to her and said, “What, no small talk? How have you been?”

“I think I know how you've been,” she said, stepping closer to him. “Fishing in Patagonia, followed by testifying before congress and becoming an internet sensation, and then traveling to Montana with the U.S. representative from that state, where you killed a man.”

“You left out getting kidnapped here in DC.”

“And your appearance on
The O'Reilly Factor
. That wasn't smart.”

“Maybe not,” he said. “But I had a feeling the right people would be watching.”

She studied him carefully, seeing if she could still read him as she had in the past. “You let them follow you to Montana?”

Jake shrugged. “They had me cold. Could have killed me. They made it far too easy for me to escape. So yeah, I let them follow me for a while.”

“And then you asked a friend at the NSA for help finding that man who had kidnapped the professor in Montana. You could have asked me.”

“I didn't want to bother someone at your level,” he explained.

Toni looked frustrated with him. Like she had been too many times in their past. Perhaps that was why they were not still together. “You think we don't know what's going on here? It's a lot more complex than you might know.”

“It always is, Toni. Let me guess, you've been tracking this technology for quite some time, along with Professor Tramil at Oregon State. Just waiting for the guy to break through. Then you caught others interested as well. Why didn't you protect the man?”

“We tried, Jake. They were both offered positions with DARPA. Neither wanted that.”

“But you were going to get this technology one way or another,” Jake said with an edge to his raised voice.

She said nothing, which revealed a lot.

He continued, “You hired the man I killed in Montana to take this technology.”

“You're crazy,” she yelled quietly, her chest rising with anger. “That's not the way we work.”

It was a bad idea to imply she was behind the murder of that professor, and Jake felt like shit for doing so. But Toni was telling him a lot less than she knew. “I'm sorry. I just don't understand how the Agency could stand on the sidelines with this type of technology out there. Tramil's work could change the way we operate. The way our military operates. The way your Agency operates. You've got to admit it makes no sense to hold back protection of those two Oregon State professors.”

Toni sat back onto the bed, her shoulders slumped. “We had some intel that others were interested in the professors, and especially Tramil. As you know we are not supposed to work within our borders.”

“Yeah, I know. But that hasn't stopped you before. Why wasn't this turned over to the FBI?”

Toni considered that and leaned back onto her arms. “Trust is a fragile thing, Jake. This is bigger than the FBI. And it's still evolving. There could be a number of State actors involved, which is our concern.”

Jake knew how this worked. Neither organization wanted to trust the other until it was absolutely necessary. “What about the video I sent you? Who are those two Bozos?”

Sitting up again, Toni said, “That I can share with you. The bald guy is a man named Danko Boskovic. And the one with long hair is Alex Yaroslav.”

“Sound like Ukrainian or Russian,” Jake said. “Maybe Czech.”

“Good guess. Boskovic is former GRU from Odessa, and Yaroslav is from Prague. He was an agent for the Russian CVR and was paid by the BIS.”

The BIS was the Czech Security Information Service. Jake had worked with them a few times. “Who are these two working for now?” Jake asked.

Toni shook her head. “Good question. That's what we're trying to find out.” She hesitated. “Do you have the professor's work?”

Jake shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out the flash card, which he threw to his old friend.

“You could have just zipped the data, encrypted it, and uploaded it to me.”

Smiling, Jake said, “I know. But maybe I still like to do some things old school. Besides, I thought it was best to make sure the congresswoman got back to DC all right. But it is encrypted and password protected.” He told her a series of fifteen numbers and letters he had used for the password, knowing she would find significance and remember it within seconds.

She got up and put the flash card into the front pocket on her slacks. “She is quite pretty.”

“That has nothing to do with it,” he assured her.

Looking toward the door, Toni said, “What will you do now?”

“I should be in Tierra del Fuego right now catching sea-run Browns,” he said. “I might just grab my gear and head back to the end of the Earth.”

“Or. . .”

“No fucking way,” Jake said. “I'm not working for the Agency again. Besides, you can't afford me.”

“Jake, come on. You know you can't retire. Fishing is for young boys and old men. You're not there yet, my friend.”

She was so full of shit. His passion was with dry flies and nymphs. If he wanted to wade chest high in a freezing mountain stream with morning mist rising off the crystal clear water, he sure as hell wasn't going to be goaded into working for the government again. “You know how I like my independence, Toni. I don't like others telling me what to do or when to do it.”

Toni smiled at him. Yeah, she knew this. “I think I might know you better than anyone else on this planet. What if I can guarantee you autonomy?”

“And if I get jacked up like in Tunisia, you'll still be there to bail my ass out?”

She raised her arms like Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro. “Have I not always been there for you, Jake?”