One Last Scent of Jasmine (Boone's File Book 3) (18 page)

Boone watched the uniformed cleaners exit and set the alarm at the front door before the last of the evening camaraderie took place, and the coworkers drifted off for the night.
You’re on, Boone honey.

Exiting the Escalade, she started her walk, taking a roundabout path. It was one, she had determined earlier in the evening, which would terminate at the rear of the offices. It was growing cooler outside, and she was glad for the Under Armour Cold Gear now insulating her under working clothes as black as any she had worn all day—
to match my mood.
Boone attempted to convince herself this was only an investigative foray, albeit one without the legal support of any search warrant. Once inside, she would have to be good, careful and fast.
Then, perhaps, it’s time for a nice hot bath with bubbles and candles.

The building's rear entrance was rigged with the same security system as the front and much more concealed from public view. Boone looked around the area to assure her privacy and reached into the short leather jacket she wore for a red-filtered flashlight, screwdriver and USB flash drive lurking there.
Here’s where those god-awful tech refresher classes pay off again.

A few moments later, the plastic cover of the access pad was detached, and the maintenance port exposed. Boone inserted the flash drive and, once the information was requested, entered the factory code. The security system, then disarmed, entered into its standby state. She punched a corresponding factory code into the keypad on the door to her left. It led to the interior, clicking as the latch disengaged.
I’m in. Hopefully, the ladies’ room is close.

After her overdue visit to a toilet in the maintenance area’s locker facilities, Boone wound her way up through the building. With the maintenance message visible on each security panel, she decided the building security system indeed seemed integrated. Thankfully, no cameras appeared to be in evidence as her survey of the exterior had led her to believe.
It’s an office building, not a liquor store … and certainly not DARIUS.
Some of Novak’s associates and business partners, she realized, were likely to be
just
the type of individuals whom one would expect to be the most camera-shy.
For once, a target’s institutionalized paranoia makes life easier for a Level Zero federal ninja.

The security office was located where she had expected: on the ground floor, near the front-entrance reception area. It was also secured though not by any mechanism more challenging than her skills could address. Six minutes later, the dead bolt turned under the expert employment of her locksmithing tools.
No record set … but then again, it wasn’t Terry’s liquor cabinet, either.

Boone once again clicked her penlight on, careful to restrict the play of the beam in an office so close to the public side of the property. The secured file cabinet inside was likewise defeated in short order, and the contents given a cursory evaluation.
Access records, security code agreements, user manuals.
Nothing operational.
Boone frowned.
What did you expect? Hard copy is dead. Everything everyone does is on computers now.

No, not everything,
she corrected herself.
Not what you wouldn’t care to have someone find in an investigation into the murder of a White House Senior Advisor or the felony burglary of a defense contractor.
“Or office building,” she grumbled under her breath.
You gave yourself twenty minutes.
Time’s damned near up, Boone. Toss the desks and then let’s get your hiney out of here.

The two built-in cabinets supporting each work surface in the office were not even locked, greatly diminishing her hopes of finding anything interesting. More of the same day-to-day crap occupied the drawers and hanging files therein.
Big risk ... and waste of time,
she concluded, closing the last drawer and hearing an unhappy sound from the rear.
A crunch? What the hell just crunched?

Pulling the drawer open again, Boone looked behind it. There a sheet of paper had lodged some time before, apparently from the back of the drawer above it. Pulling it out of the recess, she played her red light across the one-sided document.

It was a map, printed from the Internet. A route had been highlighted running up from Annandale, one which would eventually run toward …
Liberty Crossing.
There was an exit marked near the intersection with the SR 7, and a tick mark comprising the end of the highlighted section.
Precisely where Rex died.

Boone lowered herself to sit in an office chair, her hands betraying a slight tremor. She realized then how angry she was.
You bastards. You’re the guys who killed him. You sons of bitches were running interference on him in prep work for the data raid, just like you ran interference on me the other night.
In her case, she now knew, they had been forced to act without the benefit of rush-hour traffic to cover their dirty work
.

Outside, past the main reception area at the front doors, a series of beeps sounded as someone else manipulated the security system’s pad. Immediately following, another tone sounded as an again-functional access card admitted the same someone through the front doors.

Shit!
Boone slipped out of her chair and down to kneel on the floor, folding and pocketing the map. Her hands slipped under her jacket to free Little Swiss from her shoulder rig, and in an afterthought, the pistol’s suppressor as well. She joined the two below her line of sight as she watched the entryway.

It’s probably someone on the maintenance crew coming back after forgetting their jacket or lunch bucket. Be cool. Better yet, be invisible.
Boone glanced to the windows of the security office, trying to determine if anything reflective would allow her to monitor the new arrival unseen.
Nothing
. At that precise moment she focused on the bulbous attachment balanced on the frame of the monitor at the far desk.
It’s a
goddamned webcam.
A tiny, red diode told her the unit was active.
Not that it did anyone any good in the dark … it’s not infrared. It’s a cheapie.

She slipped across the floor of the office to the second desk, her hand searching for and finding the USB cable attached to the back of the thing. She pulled it out, just before the illuminating lights of the reception area came on.
There won’t be any stills. It did, however, show a shadow moving in their office.
That’s how they knew.

“Security officer! You in the cubby! Come out with your hands in plain sight!” Wally Mikulek shouted. Bart, to his left, was also looking at the desk’s enclosure over the sights of a Beretta 9mm.

A woman’s voice sounded from behind the cover of their largest file cabinet. “Call the police, guys. I found something their traffic fatality division will want to see regarding a man named Rex Schilling.”

The hell.
Bart, a panicky look on his face, threw a harsh whisper Wally's way. “It’s her, man … it’s the spook bitch in the Escalade.”

“Shut the fuck up. Lemme think.”

“Oh, you want to
think,
big boy? You should have put that cap on before you decided to fuck with ODNI.”

The disembodied voice from their office did not sound frightened or even particularly excited.
Listen to her.
She sounds like she’s ordering a goddamned pizza.

“I’m going to give you two the deal of the night,” the voice continued. “Put down your weapons, turn around, raise your hands, and I’ll let you live. I won’t even lay your asses out like I did last time.”

The balls on this bitch!
“Come on out, honey. I got sixteen buddies in this clip waiting to meetcha,” Mikulek encouraged.

“Aw … get ready, man, she’s gonna go for it. She’s gonna come … I can
feel
it,” Bart rattled in a low, harsh tone.

“
Bart
… shut the fuck
up
,” his partner advised again. Mikulek turned back toward the office. He barely saw the flick of the gloved hand flinging a small, heavy cylindrical object. It landed directly between the security guards. Holes were milled into the wall of its metal housing.
What the—

The tips of Boone’s fingers came out of her ears immediately after the detonation of the flash-bang grenade. Its force had rattled the windows of the security enclosure and the glass of the front entryway. Her hands then met around the grip of Little Swiss. Her little fingers curled under the bottom of the small weapon’s magazine, and the rest of them squeezed into an interlocking hold.
Here we go!

It was not a fair contest, but then again a gunfight had few rules. There were two her instructors had repeated time and again during her training: 
Always Cheat. Always Win.
She heeded them now.

The two security men were kneeling behind insufficient cover, stunned by the blinding light and loud blast of the entry grenade she had brought in with her from the Escalade, “just in case.”
Yes, just in case. Just in case I screwed up this badly.
Boone gave both of the blind, deaf and disabled guards a single round in the skull. The two men who had marginalized Rex Schiller themselves died without seeing or hearing who or what killed them.

Boone again looked right and saw her pair of empty cases on the waxed tile floor of the building’s foyer, one of them still smoking.
I’m out of spare barrels now. Time to call a SIG SAUER parts distributor and hope they don’t ask too many questions, I guess.

It was time to go. She took the four steps to her cartridge cases and scooped them off of the floor, again pocketing the only evidence tying her to the scene. She was not sure how much it would actually matter.
Two more dead guys. Same ammo as at DARIUS. Same rate of twist and rifling dimensions. Same MO in recovering the empties. Fucking bread crumbs, every one of them. I hate domestic operations.

Boone separated and secured her pistol and its suppressor, dipping down to also recover the still-hot serial-numbered cylinder of the flash-bang. She was grateful for the driving gloves covering her fingers. Trotting toward the rear of the building, however, she still tossed the hot potato from one hand to her other to avoid its residual heat.
Don’t worry, little guy. You’ll cool down real quick at the bottom of the Potomac.
She glanced back at the corpses of the two meatballs who had just crossed her and lost.
It’s too bad I can’t do the same with them.

An incongruity struck her as she realized it was her old self who had been the voice talking in her mind. The thought grew into reflection on her spiritual aspirations, from there to guilt, and then to painful regret for having taken two more lives as a trained reflex.
Another chapter in your long sad story, isn’t it.
This life you lead is a trap,
she realized. It hurt.

Chapter 11 - Any Means Necessary

Liberty Crossing

McLean, Virginia

Wednesday morning

His Senior Case Officer had e-mailed to inform him of her late start since she had flexed her work hours into the previous evening. As a result, Bradley decided to consciously avoid scanning the D.C. news sites, contrary to his usual morning routine. The DNI knew any report she filed as an addendum to their Level Zero case would generate a flag in his document-management Inbox. He also knew if she did
not,
it was likely the omission was meant for his own protection.
A relationship is based on trust and shared vulnerabilities. We seem to have a lot of that going on lately
.

Regardless of Bradley’s necessary commitment to The Big Picture as the Director of National Intelligence,
productivity
still entailed concentrating on the moment and taking on his day one task at a time. The process, as it did with executives everywhere, often began with managing the incessant flow of messages pouring into his e-mail client.

He momentarily changed the default sorting, as was also part of his daily routine, from
Date Received
to
Priority
by clicking on the column header. Usually, it required only a momentary glance as few people bothered to prioritize their messaging.
This
morning, however, there was indeed such an item, sent the previous evening under the highest priority.
And from damned near the highest authority.

One of two red-flag icons in his leftmost column highlighted a missive from the Office of the President, its emphasis overshadowed only by its rarity. Bradley, of course, opened the message as his first order of business. Reading the formal directive, he saw it was entirely and deliberately void of any comforting personalization:

Presidential Determination with respect to the Assimilation of Supporting Entities relating to the Collection of National Intelligence

MEMORANDUM FOR THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE

SUBJECT:  Directed Assimilation of Supporting Entities into the United States Intelligence Community

Pursuant to the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, I hereby determine it necessary, in order to protect the national security interests of the United States, to fully incorporate into Executive oversight the operations of any entity involved in the collection or dissemination of information deemed National Intelligence. Organizations so designated a Vital National Asset by the Office of the President or the National Security Council shall be required to submit a plan for transition into the designated stratum of the appropriate Agency structure.

The White House Press Office is authorized and directed to transmit this determination to the Congress, accompanied by a report in accordance with relevant authorizations, and to publish the determination in the Federal Register.