Point of Control (14 page)

C
HAPTER
26

Sunday, March 22, 10:00 a.m., Washington, DC

Bailey had the cab driver drop her off at the Presidential Plaza, where the North Korean had been abducted. She knew better than to stop at her home in Brentwood. She would want to swap out her travel clothes, cook a decent meal, and pick up the Nikola Tesla biography she’d been reading—and there was no time for any of that. The hotel was back to operating as if nothing had happened, and she didn’t spot any agents or patrol cops. She left her suitcase at the check-in desk, showed her badge, and asked where the cryptographer had been abducted.

“I wasn’t here Friday, but it was at the end of the corridor that dead-ends at the banquet kitchen. By the restroom.” The clerk pointed to a hall leading off the massive lobby filled with paintings of presidents.

“Thanks. I’ll check it out. While I’m doing that, alert your security department that I want to see the video of the abduction.”

“You really have to ask them yourself. They’re on the second floor.”

The bureau probably had a copy of the video, but she hadn’t seen it. Nor did she know if they would include her on the new kidnapping-incident team or share the intel. Especially if her boss suspected she was being noncompliant. Bailey had no intention of letting them think that. She would show up at her unit’s next meeting and see how it played out. Her boss would simply think she’d come back to DC as ordered. Tomorrow could still be a problem. Depending on what she found out about the North Korean’s kidnapping, Bailey expected to head back to the West Coast. She still hadn’t decided what to tell her boss about her absence. Illness? Death in the family? She could always use her father’s arrest as a valid family-crisis excuse.

At the end of a wide hotel corridor, she entered the men’s restroom. An odd mixed smell of urine and baking cookies hung in the air. She startled an old guy at the sink. He opened his mouth to complain, but she flashed her badge. “FBI. This is an investigation.”

He finished washing his hands and left. Bailey looked around for a vent or possible escape route and didn’t find any. The food smells unnerved her. It was just wrong for a toilet area. She started for the exit. If the kidnapper had waited in here, he’d come in through the door. The bureau’s forensic technicians had likely combed every inch of the area and picked up any trace evidence, so there was no point in searching. She just needed to see the scene and put herself in the mind of the abductors. The tech guy had probably not been alone. North Korea didn’t send important people out of the country without babysitters who made sure they came back. So where had his bodyguard been? Outside the door?

Bailey stepped out of the restroom, looked around, and spotted the double doors at the end of the hall. The hotel desk clerk said it led to the banquet kitchen, which explained the cookie aroma. The kidnappers had probably gone out the back, a short, safe route. She hurried into the kitchen area, where a full crew bustled around, and walked straight back to the loading doors. She could question the staff, but the abduction had happened while a different crew was working, and she didn’t have time to waste.

The kidnapping had not been a US federal job, regardless of what Kim Jong-un said. She’d never worked for the CIA or NSA and could only speculate, but if she were required to kidnap someone as part of her job, she would have chosen a more private venue, perhaps even gassed his hotel room, knocking out both him and the guard. Her government had time and resources. This operation had been done hastily and at great risk. Desperate men at work. But why Lee Nam? And what was the rush?

The surveillance video was key, but it would save her time and the hassle to view it at the bureau, where she was headed anyway. She would crash the meeting, as if she belonged, silently daring them to exclude her. If that didn’t work, she would use Agent Lennard’s password to access all the files. Long ago, Bailey had snooped and found it when she needed more intel than she’d been given access to. She walked out to the loading dock, inhaling the exhaust fumes of the last truck that had parked there, and made a call. Havi, her analyst buddy, would be able to tell her what time the team was gathering. If they had the bodyguard in custody, she might even be able to meet with him.

Havi took forever to answer and his voice sounded strained. “Hey, Bailey. Where are you?”

“I’m here in DC. Briefly.” She didn’t understand his discomfort and didn’t have time to find out. “I need to know when the North Korean incident team is meeting.”

“I’m not in that loop, but I’m sure it’s happening today.”

“Lee Nam had a babysitter, correct? Is he in custody?”

“Dukko Ki-ha, a military police officer, and no, he’s not in custody.” Havi clanked something in the background, then continued. “Dukko has been questioned, but he refused to come into the bureau. No one wanted to exacerbate the situation with Kim Jong-un by detaining one of his officers.”

“Do you know where Dukko is?”

“No. Why don’t you just ask Lennard?” A pause. “I heard you were pulled off the other kidnappings. What’s going on?”

“I think all the kidnappings are connected, but I’m not sure the AD wants to hear that, so please don’t repeat it.” Impatient, she walked down the service alley, planning to grab her luggage and catch a cab. “Can you find out about the meeting? Or where the North Korean police officer might be?”

“I’m not in the office, but I’ll see what I can do.”

Now she understood his irritation. “I’m sorry to bother you at home. Thanks for your help.”

“No worries.”

They hung up. Bailey decided to go straight to the bureau. Everything she needed to know was in that building. Her only worry was that her boss would tell her she couldn’t investigate the new kidnapping, then give her some bullshit assignment. In which case, everything she did after that would be insubordination. That didn’t bother her, except for the potential consequence of losing her job. This career held too much power, prestige, and protection for her to ever let it go without a fight.

As she exited a cab in front of the bureau’s headquarters, Havi called back. “The team is meeting in an hour in the small critical-incident room. Lennard is running it.”

“Anything on the bodyguard?”

“No, sorry.”

“Thanks, Havi. You’re the best. Let me know if I can return the favor.” She enjoyed making people happy, as much as an empath would. She was just more calculating about it.

The halls were even emptier than usual. Despite the number of people who worked at headquarters, it was often a quiet place, even during the week. Field agents like her were rarely at their desks, and analysts like Havi were always at their desks. Very little meandering or socializing went on. Bailey hurried to her own workspace and turned on the computer.

The screen blurred and her body sagged at the same time. She was exhausted, but she didn’t have time to make coffee. She closed her eyes, focused her brain, and willed herself to find a reserve of energy. A little food would help. She hadn’t eaten anything since the crappy little snack on the plane six hours ago.

Bailey got up and hurried down the hall to Kepner’s office. She was the public relations liaison and made a point of being friendly to everyone. She also left her office unlocked and kept food in her drawers. Bailey slipped in, found a chocolate protein bar, grabbed it, and left. Kepner would have given it to her if she’d asked.

Back at her desk, Bailey logged into the system and keyed in search words related to the North Korean incident, hoping to find the hotel video of the kidnapping. The bureau gave all major cases a code name, and sometimes the moniker was logically connected, and other times it wasn’t. She got lucky on her fifth guess:
interview
. Kim Jong-un had recently been the butt of a comedy called
The Interview
. She’d also tried
Fat Boy
, because that’s what some agents called him.

The file was locked, so she used her boss’ password to get in, giving her a jolt of pleasure. She could always bullshit her way through the conversation if Lennard ever found out. Bailey could have asked to see the file and might have been allowed. But why risk being told no? Especially when the thrill of rule breaking was too seductive to resist.

The video clip was only a few minutes long and had been taken from a camera across the corridor about twenty feet away. Still, she got a decent look at the kidnapper coming out of the bathroom, the victim behind him, and the guard, who seemed to look straight at the camera for a moment. The unsub wore black pants and a white button-down shirt with a security badge. The thin, nervous Asian man behind him did not appear captive in any way. The presence of three unknown people—hotel guests?—surprised her. They came at the guard and seemed to shout questions. Then the fake security man shoved a hand into the bodyguard’s face and he went down. Chloroform? Even after his guard was knocked unconscious and accosted by the three intruders, Lee Nam didn’t appear disturbed or afraid, and he left with the two men willingly. Bailey wasn’t even sure she’d witnessed an abduction.

The second unsub had entered the scene from the side, with only his profile showing. Still, under the makeup and the oversized nose, she thought she recognized Jerry Rockwell’s broad face. He was the right height as well. She looked for the dark birthmark on his cheek, but didn’t see it. Was that the point of the makeup? The theatrical disguises would probably throw off the facial recognition software, and Rockwell was at least thirty pounds heavier than he’d been in his mug shot all those years ago. Still, logic indicated these were the same guys who’d kidnapped the scientists.

The tech guy had watched the security person knock out his fellow North Korean and hadn’t reacted, so they must have convinced him they were somehow helping him. Lee Nam wanted to get away from his guard. Was he defecting? If so, the kidnappers could have been government agents after all.
Oh hell.
Was it possible the CIA was responsible for the other abductions too? The agency did whatever it wanted as long as someone thought national security was the end game. But why would metallurgists, with different specialties, be important to national security? Unless the CIA needed the scientists to develop some kind of weaponry. An image of Nick Bowman’s naked, battered corpse played in her brain. His kidnappers had pushed him out of a helicopter or plane. Would the CIA murder an American civilian? It seemed so unlikely. Bailey set aside the idea but didn’t dismiss it outright.

She opened the initial report filed by the agents who’d responded to the hotel kidnapping, and skimmed through it. Pages of interview notes revealed almost nothing she didn’t already know, except that one kitchen worker had witnessed “an Asian man leaving out the back dock with two security guards.” She also learned that the military bodyguard, Dukko Ki-ha, had said very little during his interview. Bailey glanced at the time on her monitor. The task force meeting would start soon. She logged out of Agent Lennard’s account and logged back in with her own, leaving the computer running.

The maze of hallways leading to the Critical Incident area was complex and frustrating for someone with her directional challenges, and she had made dozens of wrong turns in her first year in the building. By now, she knew them well, but as tired as she was, she recited her left-right memorization just to be sure. She wished again for a cup of coffee.

The smaller CI room held ten tables with computers, monitors, and other digital equipment. While an incident was unfolding, Lennard, the unit’s director, called in the field agents and analysts with the expertise needed for the case and instructed them exactly where to sit and who to interact with. This current scenario was unique, and only six people were in the room. Two analysts showed signs of having been at their back-table station for hours—jackets off, empty coffee cups, watery eyes. Special Agent Lennard stood at the front of the room with Assistant Director Brent Haywood—the two people who’d given her the original assignment. Markham and Trent, two male agents who worked domestic terrorism cases, sat together at a table in front.

“Bailey!” Lennard looked surprised, but not upset, to see her. “When did you get back?”

“Today.” Bailey breezed in and sat at a table next to Markham and Trent’s. “I saw the news about Lee Nam’s kidnapping and thought I should be here.” She gave a small shrug, implying casualness. “Just in case the two investigations are linked.”

“That certainly occurred to us,” the AD said, making eye contact. “But with all the intel gathered, we’ve decided the North Korean incident is distinctive and unrelated.”

Seriously?
Bailey locked her jaw to keep from arguing. She needed information, and the best way to get it was to listen.

“The abduction was staged,” Markham said, next to her. “Lee Nam went with the two men willingly. We think he plans to defect.”

“Or at least disappear,” the assistant director added.

Again, Bailey held her tongue. They didn’t know she’d seen the video, and it wasn’t in her best interest to indicate she had. Hadn’t anyone seen the resemblance between the kidnapper at the hotel and Jerry Rockwell, the man identified by a witness as Dana Thorpe’s abductor? The thought of Garrett made her heart flutter. Bailey focused on the bigger issue and finally spoke up. “If Lee Nam is defecting and doesn’t want to be found, how do we placate Kim Jong-un? If he’s crazy enough to execute the head of his military for dozing off at a meeting, he won’t hesitate to kill an American actor. He might even be wacko enough to launch a missile.”

“We either find their cryptographer or we pretend we have,” Lennard said. “We’ll patch together a video or audio statement if we have to.” Lennard looked like she’d been awake and at work since the North Korean’s kidnapping.

Bailey didn’t mean to sound skeptical, but she was surprised they thought they could pull it off. “Is there enough available digital recording of Lee Nam to splice together an intelligent statement?”

Lennard’s shoulders slumped. “We’re still searching for public statements he might have made and combing the symposium’s footage.” Her boss gestured at the analysts working the back table. “It would have helped if Lee had made his presentation before he checked out.”