Support and Defend (18 page)

A
T EIGHT-FORTY A.M.
he stepped out the front door of his Georgetown row house. By now the clouds had moved on and the sky was bright and blue. He buttoned his wool coat against a cold breeze as he descended the stairs and headed down to his Mercedes in the driveway.

A moment later he fired up both the engine and the stereo. He was in a Rage Against the Machine mood this morning, so he selected a playlist on his phone and then rolled off down 34th street in the direction of work.

D
OMINIC
C
ARUSO WATCHED
him go.

He stood in a small grove of trees across the street in Volta Park, his hands in his pockets to protect them from the cold wind. His head and face were covered with a wool hat and a neck gaiter, and he wore gray coveralls and black sneakers. A white hard hat was tucked into the crook of his arm, and a small black backpack hung over a shoulder.

He looked like a laborer who’d just climbed off a bus from one of the poorer sections of town, down here in tony Georgetown to work on the roads or an exterior home-remodel project in the area.

After Ethan Ross’s Mercedes disappeared down the street with some sort of thundering rap music Dom couldn’t identify blaring through its closed windows, he turned his attention back to Ross’s home: 1598 34th Street was a narrow, whitewashed brick two-story row house with a drive on one side and steps in front that led both up to the tiny porch and down to a basement entrance. It wasn’t a large building at all, maybe fifteen hundred square feet or so, but in this ritzy neighborhood Dom put its value at north of two million dollars. Dom doubted the average NSC staffer would be able to swing a mortgage here, which meant Ross’s wealthy mom was probably footing the bill.

Dom didn’t know if this guy was the traitor or not, but he’d already built up some biases against him.

From his position in the neighborhood park Dom could see the fronts of all the other row houses up and down the other side of 34th Street. He took a few minutes to make sure none had security cameras on their porches that were angled to pick up the sidewalk in front of Ross’s property. He knew exactly where to look for them, and he found nothing that gave any indication that an approach of 1598 would be recorded for posterity by a neighbor.

He then spent a few minutes analyzing several other crucial features about Ross’s property and the neighborhood from his viewpoint here in the quiet little park. When he had all the intel he needed he turned away, headed back up the street to Wisconsin Avenue. His mission for right now was to get out of the cold and to enjoy a leisurely cup of coffee. He wanted to make certain everyone in the neighborhood heading to work or to school this morning had cleared out, so he decided to time his entry for ten a.m.

Last night after he got off the phone with Albright, Dom read through Ross’s bio and CV and a few articles he had written for
Foreign Affairs
and other publications. He’d found nothing in his writings of note other than a bias against Israel, which wasn’t at all uncommon in U.S. diplomatic circles. He then looked up Ross’s name and birth date in a D.C. real estate records database and found his address in Georgetown, pulled up the neighborhood on Google Maps and used Street View to virtually walk the area. This gave him a basic understanding of the layout and style of the buildings, and he was even able to use his computer to look over a fence in the side yard that showed him the rear of his target’s property.

Dom knew there was much Street View could not reveal— the map was not the territory, after all—but he also knew spending a few minutes on his tablet looking at the area was a hell of a lot safer than spending the time physically wandering the streets around his target location and climbing fences.

No neighborhood-watch busybody was going to call the cops on him while he sat on his couch looking at Ross’s house virtually, even if he spent all night doing so.

There was another program on Dom’s computer that did much the same thing, although in higher detail. EagleView Technologies had a satellite mapping service that was similar to Google Maps, but it had more coverage with higher resolution in places where Google Maps did not bother to provide data, which made it a great resource for military and intelligence purposes. Dom could have used EagleView to research Ross’s home, but for his needs—a view of a street in Georgetown— Google Maps was just fine.

Dom appreciated technological advances like this. His uncle had been a spy, sort of, back in the old days—the 1980s. Dom couldn’t imagine what that was like, operating against the Soviet Union without a smart phone and worldwide satellite imagery.

He thought it must have been exhausting.

After spending a half-hour on Google Street View and the property-records search of Ross’s home that gave him the basic layout, he decided could, with some tradecraft and planning, pay a covert visit to Ross’s home to look for more information.

It was a decision he did not take lightly. After all, this was B&E, breaking and entering. One hundred percent against the law, even for a guy with a badge that said he was FBI. But Dom was driven by the death of the Yacobys and the faint sense that he was on the scent of one of the people responsible for their deaths, and if the Bureau’s best polygraph examiner suspected Ross was hiding something, Dom decided that was good enough for him to poke around into the man’s affairs.

Albright, on the other hand, would have to go through channels, which meant he’d have to jump through a maddening array of bureaucratic hoops. Dom told himself he’d dig into Ross a little, and if he turned out pure as the driven snow, Dom would back away quickly and discreetly, he’d be chastened by his impetuous behavior, but there would be no harm, no foul. On the other hand, if he found evidence that this White House wonder boy with the model looks and the multimillion-dollar house had anything to do with the deaths in India, then he knew exactly what he was going to do.

Dom was going to ask Gerry for lethal authority to kill him.

E
THAN
R
OSS GOT LUCKY
with the traffic this morning and he made it to work a little early—a rare enough occurrence that one of the security guards in the entrance shack to the Eisenhower Building made a joke about him vying for a promotion. In his office Ethan took off his coat, grabbed his waiting mocha off his desk, and stepped out into his secretary’s office. He chatted with Angie for a few minutes, well aware of his need to appear cool and casual, and quite impressed with his ability to do so. Angie asked about the poly and he remained relaxed, going into little detail but assuring her it was nothing more than a nuisance.

He actually got some work done in the first part of the morning. The national security adviser himself had an appointment in the Oval that afternoon, and Ethan’s direct boss had sent him a couple questions to answer about a dispute in the Knesset that might or might not come up during the meeting. Ethan did some research in his files and on the Intelink-TS system, and he called a colleague at CIA. He sent his answers back to his boss before nine-thirty a.m.

Everything was going smoothly today, and Ethan’s feigned relaxed demeanor morphed into authentic composure as the morning wore on. He could see the light at the end of the tunnel; the FBI investigation would fizzle out in days, and this would all be behind him before he knew it.

He took a long break after sending his work to his boss, grabbed a cup of coffee in the dining room and chatted with some other staffers, then he returned to his desk. He’d just sat back down when he heard Angie talking to someone out in her office and he glanced up. There, just outside his door, stood FBI special agent Darren Albright.

The FBI agent looked huge and menacing as he loomed in the doorway, his eyes locked on Ethan and his broad shoulders squared toward him.

Ethan felt his head recoil, just an inch or two. He clenched the sides of his desk with both hands.

What’s going on?
Was he under arrest? Was Albright going to tell him to stand up and turn around?

Ethan relaxed a little when Albright said, “Don’t get up,” but Ethan stood on shaky legs anyway.

The special agent said, “I just stepped in to see your secretary to check your schedule. Wondering if you have time for a quick interview.”

“An
interview
?”

“It’s routine,” Albright said, but the blank expression on his face remained, and Ethan read it as ominous. “You have a few minutes?”

Ross then bent over his blotter to look at his agenda for the week. He kept his hold on the edge of the desk as he did so, worrying his hands would shake.

“Actually, we’ll have to do it another day. I’m taking the afternoon off. I’m out of here in a few.”

“Going somewhere?”

“To the dentist,” Ethan replied flatly, careful to hide any defensiveness.

Albright did not blink. “This won’t take but a minute.”

Ross looked back up from his blotter. He shrugged, a nonchalant gesture that he wondered if he had overbaked. “Well . . . I’m right in the middle—”

“Five quick minutes. Just a couple of questions.”

Fuck.
He wished he’d taken Harlan’s pills this morning. He
should
have taken them, should have been ready for an impromptu questioning like this. He wouldn’t sweat—the glycopyrrolate would last for several days, but he regretted not taking the mood-stabilizing meds.

Ethan motioned to the chair behind his desk, and he and Albright both sat back down. He folded his arms in front of him and put his elbows on his blotter. He pushed down hard into them, now virtually obsessed with the idea of avoiding displaying to Albright the anxiety he felt by exhibiting tremors.

The FBI man pulled out a notebook and a pen, then began flipping through the pages, as if looking for something. “Your girlfriend.” He tossed another page to the side and scrolled down some more. “Eve Pang.”

Ethan clenched his jaw and straightened his back slightly. “What about her?”

“She is an information systems security manager at Booz Allen.”

“That’s correct.”

“Working, I see, on firewalled and VPN platforms.”

Ethan narrowed his eyes and looked over Albright’s shoulder to a spot against the wall as if he was thinking. “Not sure. We don’t talk about work too much, but I think that sounds about right.”

Albright cocked his head. Ethan couldn’t tell if he was genuinely surprised or playing a role. “You don’t talk about work?”

“Not really.”

“You got your B.A. in computer science, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“So you probably have a lot to talk about.”

“Not really. What she does is light years beyond my knowledge.”

Albright smiled. Ross realized he’d never seen the man make the expression. “How would you know what she does if you two don’t talk about work?”

“Well. I mean . . . I know in general what she does.”

“You do? How so?”

Ethan felt his blood boiling. Albright’s leading and provocative questions were quick and terse and designed to make him ramble, perhaps to incriminate himself. Ethan didn’t know if all this was due to Finn’s suspicions yesterday, or if everyone here on the third floor was getting the same treatment, but he felt genuine fear sinking into the pit of his stomach. Yesterday he’d had time to plan for his polygraph, and he’d been ready, more or less. This impromptu inquisition had caught him hcompletely off guard. His mind raced with doubt and worry.
Why the hell did I tell him I could talk? Would it have looked worse to refuse to speak? What can I say to stop this interview right now?
“Really, Special Agent Albright, I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to bring Eve into this. She doesn’t even work here, and—”

“I mean . . . it’s only natural to discuss work. I talk about the job with my wife, general stuff, mind you, because she doesn’t hold a security clearance. I would imagine Eve probably told you all about the unauthorized breach of the
Ardahan
files as soon as it happened, four months ago. There wouldn’t be anything wrong with that. You’re cleared TS.”

Albright went silent again, Ross felt him trying to pull words out of Ethan’s mouth.

Ethan only shook his head slowly.

Another G is trying to get you to confess. Shut the fuck up.

Albright sat patiently.

At last, and only to break an interminable silence that Albright seemed content to last forever, Ross said, “No. She didn’t say anything about it. Of course she wouldn’t, would she?”

“Wouldn’t she?”

The two men looked at each other for a long moment in dead silence. Finally Ethan said, “No. Delvecchio said even though the breach was months ago, it was only identified after the attack in India last weekend.”

“Oh, right. That’s correct.” Albright coughed and looked down at his notes, an affectation that made him look uncomfortable. “My mistake.”

Nailed him,
Ethan thought. This son of a bitch thought he was going to win a battle of wits with Ethan Ross. Bolstered now, Ethan said, “You are thrashing around, Special Agent Albright. I get it. You need to catch the culprit. I honestly hope you do. But you are barking up the wrong tree.”

Albright shrugged, his big shoulders heaved in his suit. “Maybe so. Maybe not.”

“Do I need to bring my lawyer into this?”

Albright furrowed his brow like he was genuinely confused. “Your lawyer? I don’t know, Mr. Ross. I guess if you are in some kind of trouble then
yes
, you might need a lawyer.”

The room went silent again.

Albright let the tension build before he spoke. “I’m going to interview Ms. Pang. You might want to take this opportunity to get out in front of anything she says.”

“Interview her? She doesn’t have anything to do with the network here.”

“Yes, but she has a lot to do with you. We won’t box her, but we’ll ask her about your conversations. If there was anything at all that she let slip in her pillow talk, anything that you might have used to facilitate the download of the
Ardahan
files, well, you won’t be the only one in trouble.”

“That’s outrageous.”

“What’s outrageous is the fact that someone in this office, someone entrusted with classified information, violated that trust. It would also be outrageous if someone’s girlfriend helped him, either wittingly or otherwise. She’d lose her clearance for certain, she’d lose her reputation. If I could tie an indictment onto her, I would do just that.” Albright leaned forward. “I’d drag her through the coals, just to fuck with the guy who betrayed his nation.”

Ethan kept a poker face. “Is there anything else, Special Agent Albright?”

Albright nodded. “That’s right, you need to be running along so you can go get your teeth cleaned.”

“And I assume you need to move off down the hall to the next office to try and scare Walter, and then move from him to Beth’s office to terrify her. Interesting job you have. Must be a blast.”

The FBI man headed to the door, but he stopped, turned, and looked back. “Actually, this part of the job sucks. But the best part, the part I fucking live for, is that moment when I Mirandize some arrogant prick who thought he was going to get away with it.”

“Well, then, I wish you luck with that.”

Albright said, “Yeah, see you around,” and he left the office without another word.

Ethan sat quietly for several minutes, his elbows still on the desk, pondering the conversation with the FBI special agent. Then he lifted his coat off the rack, grabbed his briefcase, and headed for the door.