The Backup Asset (26 page)

“What the hell?” she mumbled, awoken from a dream-filled, agitated sleep.

She listened for a minute, not sure the noise she’d heard was real or a dream. Then she heard it again, this time loud and clear, three knocks on her hotel room door. She jumped out of bed and looked through the peephole, then unlocked the door, turning on the light.

“You again? Or is this some sick déjà vu moment?” she said, inviting Jeremy in. “You already know what my jammies look like.”

“Yeah. Sorry about that. We got a problem, a big one.”

She turned on another lamp and sat at the small desk. “What’s up?”

“Smolin has a backup asset in play. We have another leak.”

She frowned and wiped her eyes, chasing the remnants of sleep away.

“How did you find out?”

“He’s using a webmail service to communicate with home base, without even sending email, just by saving message drafts. He referred to ‘still planning to go shopping for the real big salami,’ or sausage, or something like that.”

“Or something like what?”

“Like . . . dick,” he spilled it out after hesitating, a little embarrassed. Alex didn’t seem to mind.

“What was the original phrase he used?”

He checked his notes, then struggled pronouncing, “
Bolshoy khuy kolbasy.
”

“Yup, they’re talking about the cannon all right,” she said thoughtfully. “When irritated by objects, things, or even people, Russians compare them with male genitalia. Just like we’d say about someone ‘he’s a dick,’ or ‘that dick, George.’ Our laser cannon must irritate the hell out of them. So what do the analysts think?”

“They’re thinking he’s targeting the plans for the laser cannon this time, not only the compatibility and installation. They’re saying that Smolin’s plan has escalated.”

“Any idea who this backup asset is?”

“None whatsoever. It could be one of Walcott’s people, or anyone on the ship for that matter. We’re running background checks and surveillance on everyone, effective immediately. But it could still not be enough, that’s what I’m afraid of.”

Two teams watched the Novachenko residence, waiting for Smolin to make a move. About noon, he left the house, unwrapping a sandwich as he stepped down the five concrete steps in front of his door.

Smolin stretched a little, apparently enjoying the warm sun. Then he started walking casually, continuing to unwrap his food.

He took one bite and chewed it, letting disappointment show on his face.

“That must taste like shit,” one of the agents in the stakeout car commented with a chuckle.

“He, he, Russian cuisine, what would you expect?” his partner replied, and they both laughed.

Smolin wrapped his sandwich, continuing to look disgusted, and disposed of it in the nearest trash can. Then he continued his walk, followed at a safe distance by the two surveillance teams.

Minutes later, a street bum started going through the Dumpster where Smolin had thrown his sandwich. He retrieved it carefully, studied it for a few seconds, then placed it in his pocket and vanished, unseen.

Mason’s office at Walcott was crowded again, contrasting with the deserted corporate office building on a Sunday morning. Jeremy, Sam, and Alex were all standing, leaning against the walls of his small office.

“Thanks for coming in on a Sunday, Mason, we appreciate it,” Alex said.

“Sure, no problem,” Mason said, seeming a little surprised. “We’re in this 24/7 until we’re done.”

“Here’s where we are,” Alex said. “We have identified a Russian, most likely a handler, by the name of Smolin. He’s Russian intelligence, a major. He’s here under the cover of a visiting parent with a family of Russian-born American citizens, the Novachenkos. This man is key.”

“Why don’t we arrest him? How sure are we?” Mason asked.

“Very sure. Before he killed himself, Hadden handed Smolin an envelope. We assume some intel was in there.”

“Did we recover it?” Mason asked.

“No, we didn’t,” Jeremy replied. “We wanted to continue to investigate this leak, and it gave us results. Now we know it’s a bigger operation, bigger than just Hadden.”

“But you could have contained it!” Mason almost yelled. “You saw that happen and you didn’t arrest them? Why?”

“Because we thought—” Alex started, but was immediately interrupted by Jeremy.

“Allow me,” he said, and she nodded. “Interrogations in these cases are risky, as we’ve seen with Hadden, and statistically speaking highly unreliable. Our best bet to contain
the entire leak
is to let Smolin proceed under extremely tight surveillance.”

A few moments of silence ensued, while Mason was processing the information.

“All right,” he said. “What’s our game plan? How do we minimize the exposure and contain the intel?”

“I’ve worked intelligence for thirty years, Mason,” Sam intervened, “you know that. I’ve worked countless assets, and they all did the same thing. They trickled down the intel, looking to squeeze more money or more favor out of each document. No one comes to a handler and drops everything he knows or he has on one date. Not unless they wanted to defect, and that is obviously not the case here.”

“Then what do you think our exposure is, Sam?” Mason asked. “Can it still be salvaged?”

“I’m thinking some of the intel might have leaked all the way to Moscow, but I’m guessing it was the preliminary intel; the bait, as we called it out in the field. But this is too new to have gone too far, that’s what my gut’s telling me.”

“Ms. Hoffmann, are you in agreement with this strategy?” Mason asked.

“Wholeheartedly. We need to stay on Smolin like ticks on a dog, and he’ll lead us to the other assets.”

“What about leak containment?” Mason probed.

“It’s highly unlikely he’ll be able to drop a dime on the street without several agents seeing that. We’re confident no information will change hands without us knowing about it. I am positive the leak is contained.”

“Good,” Mason said with a long sigh. “Then one thing remains on today’s agenda. Tomorrow’s Memorial Day ceremony and inaugural demonstration of the laser cannon onboard the USS
Fletcher
. Are we canceling that? Do we have reasons to be concerned for anyone’s safety? Let me remind you it’s a highly anticipated event. It has been publicized everywhere, and canceling it will put a big blemish on the Navy’s reputation, not to mention SecNav’s.”

“These are paper spies we’re dealing with,” Jeremy said. “I am confident everything will be all right tomorrow. We don’t have any information about any threat to the USS
Fletcher
. Neither do NCIS or Homeland. All quiet.”

“Ms. Hoffmann?” Mason asked.

She nodded in response, a little preoccupied.

“Then we’re good,” Mason replied. “See you all tomorrow at the ceremony.”

They left the office and headed for their cars, Alex still preoccupied and tense.

“Something tugging at your gut there, kiddo?” Sam asked her, patting her on the shoulder.

She thought for a second of Smolin’s loathing message.
Bolshoy khuy kolbasy
. . . The message reeked of hate, hate against the weapon itself, against the object. Or maybe she didn’t really grasp the Russian culture, and she was overthinking the issue.

“Nah . . . it’s nothing,” she said, and forced herself to smile.

The colors were flying high on the USS
Fletcher
, and she was dressed up for the ceremony, with red, white, and blue garlands all around.

The guests were starting to arrive and traffic was jammed in front of Pier 7. Guests walked from the parking area across from the pier, where their limos would drop them off, and then lined up for the security screening before boarding the vessel.

The laser cannon demonstration of accuracy had attracted an elite attendance; admirals and NATO secretaries-general came in great numbers, attracted by the novelty of a weapon that promised to change the balance of power at sea, on land, and in the air.

Security was very tight for a Memorial Day ceremony. There were millimeter wave scanners and X-ray machines on loan from the TSA, installed overnight. Everyone had to go through the screening, no exceptions. When he arrived, the SecNav frowned a little at the unprecedented security measures, but then proceeded through the scanners with a smile, under the flashes of the cameras.

Media was present in hordes, attracted by the select attendee list of the event, and by the novelty and buzz about the new weapon scheduled for demonstration a little later in the day. A couple of news helicopters circled in the air like vultures, from a respectable distance imposed by restrictions and the promise of a laser cannon demo, waiting to catch a snippet of sensation, and causing an irritating, omnipresent background noise.

The helipad at the stern of the
Fletcher
had been set up for the ceremony. Rows of folding chairs were laid out in a semicircular pattern, facing toward the laser cannon dome at the right and toward the open sea at the left. A lectern was erected on a small platform; SecNav, SecDef, and Captain Meecham would give their addresses from there.

Alex took in all the details, together with the crisp smell of salty air in the morning sun. It was a beautiful day for such a ceremony. She waited patiently in line to be screened, then boarded the
Fletcher
and started looking around for familiar faces. Sam, Mason, and Jeremy were attending the event, and, of course, Special Agent Moore of NCIS was planning to be aboard, with a team of naval counterintelligence agents.

“There you are,” she heard Jeremy say.

“Hey,” she replied, focused on a familiar silhouette, a young man with fire-red hair, wearing a full-dress white uniform.

“What’s the matter?” Jeremy asked.

The red-haired man turned and locked eyes for a second with Alex, then bolted through a bulkhead.

“Something’s wrong,” she said, “really wrong.”

“But what? We’ve screened everyone who came aboard.”

“Maybe the problem was aboard to begin with,” she replied. “Help me track down that guy,” she said

“You got it,” Jeremy said, then dialed Moore to brief him.

“Suspect is young, maybe twenty, has bright red hair and freckles, wears whites,” she heard him say as she disappeared though the same bulkhead, just when several NCIS agents were entering the deckhouse from all directions.

She caught up with the young man in the cafeteria, where she found him sitting inconspicuously at a table, with a half-empty coffee cup in front of him.

Smart, she thought, jumpy, but smart.

She sat at his table, across from him.

“May I?”

There was no answer, other than the young man turned a sickly shade of freckled pale.

“We just want to talk to you, that’s all,” she said, smiling as gently as she could.

“I’ve got nothing to talk to you about,” the sailor answered, then looked away, averting his eyes from her intense scrutiny.

“What are you afraid of?” she pressed on. “What’s wrong?”

He turned paler and tightened his lips, as if forcing himself to clam up. Then all of a sudden he sprang up from his seat and bolted, heading for the exit. Alex jumped off her chair and lunged, grabbing his right sleeve with all her strength. Then she came right behind him and kicked the back of his knee with a Krav Maga move, bringing him to his knees. Then she pushed her foot between his shoulder blades, forcing him flat on his stomach, face on the deck.

“I’ll take it from here,” a man said, flashing an NCIS badge. “What’s he done?”

The agent pulled the sailor up from the floor, now handcuffed with flex cuffs.

“Umm . . . not sure,” she said, a little embarrassed. “Not sure yet.”

“What? We can’t just grab people and handcuff them because a civilian is not sure. Pardon me, ma’am, even if my boss asked me to extend all support, this is all wrong.”

He started to uncuff the sailor, but Alex stopped him.

“No!” she said. “Something’s wrong, you got that right. Search his quarters, please. And tell me his name.”

“His name is Mike Simionov,” the agent said. “Petty officer third class.”

Mike, my ass,
she thought.
I bet he was born Mikhail. A Russian . . . What a coincidence.

Jeremy entered the cafeteria, followed closely by Gabriel Moore.

“I’ll handle it from here, take him downstairs,” Moore told the other agent. “What’s going on?”

“His behavior was off, both times I’ve seen him. This is the man I was asking about on Tuesday, in Mason’s office, Jeremy. This is him. He’s definitely hiding something.”

“We’ll talk to him,” Moore said.

“While you pull the information out of him, let’s address the potential issues by order of urgency. Jeremy, can you call in explosive-sniffing dogs?”

“Yeah . . . I can, but it will take a while for them to get here. Aren’t we jumping the gun from a scared sailor to explosives?”

“Look,” she said, checking the time. “The demo is scheduled to start in twenty-three minutes or so. And it’s not just another sailor. He’s a sailor with a Russian last name. And Smolin’s message about the sausage reeked of hate—hate against an object, that one,” she ended pointing her finger at the laser cannon cupola, installed on top of the helo hangar.

“How sure are you?” Jeremy asked quietly, running his hand through his hair.

“Make the call, Jeremy, make the call now. Then I’ll explain.”

“I’m all ears,” Moore said. “Do you realize we have admirals, SecNav, SecDef, and NATO aboard this ship today?”

Captain Meecham entered the cafeteria and stood silently, listening as Jeremy called the K9 unit in and Alex explained her point of view.

“That’s precisely it, Gabriel. I guarantee you will find explosives around the cannon. It’s in close proximity to all the visiting officials, and the plan has grandeur in it, has a greatness I’ve encountered before. Can you imagine the effect of taking out the elite Navy leadership under hundreds of cameras ready to roll? If the cannon blows up during a demo, everyone will think it just blew up, and that we’re just a bunch of incompetents who can’t fire a weapon safely. The effects of this attack would ripple for decades.”

“What do you want to do?” Moore asked. “Evacuate?”

“It would make sense to evacuate,” she agreed. “Captain?”

“For a civilian’s hunch? Agent Moore, we have nothing but speculation to support this theory, nothing else! I’d love to have a career in the Navy after today’s ceremony, if possible.”

“Then delay the demo a little,” Alex pleaded. “Buy me some time before we start the demo. Can you at least do that?”

“Yes, I guess we can, although it will be embarrassing,” Meecham agreed reluctantly. “I’ll think of a way.”

“Was the start time of the demo announced anywhere?” Alex asked.

“Yes, in the event program. It was distributed to everyone,” Meecham said.

“Great . . . just great,” she groaned. “Listen, the device, if I’m right, might be on a timer, rigged to go off at the time the demo was scheduled to start, in about seven minutes or so. What do you have in mind for a delay?”

“My officers will sing a few Navy songs, and no one’s ever refused coffee and cookies,” he replied.

“All right, let’s get it done,” she encouraged him, and thanked him with a thumbs-up.

She climbed up the stairs from the mess hall, and almost tripped and fell over a German Shepherd on a six-foot leash, dragging his handler in tow.

“Where do you wanna start?” Jeremy asked.

“Helo hangar,” she replied.

The dog led them through a bulkhead into the helo hangar, from where they could see everyone in attendance seated and listening to a choir of officers singing the all-time Navy favorite, “Anchors Aweigh.”

Then the Shepherd stopped and stared up, his tail wagging rapidly, at the ceiling structure of the helo hangar, recently reinforced to support the dome and the laser cannon installation. They followed the direction the dog was looking and there it was, hidden between the structure’s beams, a C4 block the size of a brick and a timing mechanism.

“Oh, shit . . .” Alex said, “how much time left? Can’t see from here.”

“1:18,” Jeremy said.

“Evacuate?” Moore asked.

“No time,” Jeremy said. “Close the hangar doors and give me some light.”

He climbed on a barrel and reached the device. The digital timer was counting down, less than thirty seconds left.

He took a deep breath and steadied his hands. He studied the device a little, calmly, like he had all the time in the world. They were in luck apparently, no failsafe, just a detonating pin stuck in the plastic explosive and hooked up to a timing device.

He held his breath and went for the pin, grabbing it gently as the timer showed seven seconds left.

He started pulling it out, and cleared it from the plastic brick, then removed the timer and stopped it. The red, ominous digits displayed 0:02.

“Whew,” Alex said, “great job, Jer.”

“Is this the only one?” Moore asked grimly.

“Officer Rambo thinks so,” the K9 officer replied. “But we’ll walk the entire ship just to make sure.”

Alex chuckled, hearing the dog’s name. How appropriate.

“Now what?” Jeremy asked, wiping the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve.

“We should evacuate,” Moore said. “Per procedure, I have to evacuate the ship and bring the bomb squad in. We have a block of C4 in the ceiling, for Christ’s sake,” he insisted, seeing the resistance in Alex’s determined eyes.

“I say we stay, carry on with our demo as scheduled. Well, maybe not as scheduled,” she joked, pointing vaguely in the direction of the choir now going through their third hit song. She opened the hangar door a little, letting some air and sunshine in, but making sure no one outside could see the NCIS agents removing the C4 brick from the ceiling.

“Is that safe?”

“Without a detonator, C4 is pretty safe to handle, so I’d say yes,” Jeremy asked.

“Then let’s continue,” she insisted.

“No way,” Gabriel replied. I’ll have to inform SecNav about this. Good thing he’s right there,” he said, pointing him out.

Captain Meecham locked eyes with her from a distance, and she made a rolling gesture with her hand, encouraging him to carry on with the choir performance.

Gabriel started toward the helipad, but she grabbed his sleeve and said, “Listen to me, please.”

He gave her a fiery look, then dropped his intense gaze to where she was holding on to his sleeve. She let that go instantly and mumbled an apology. Then she continued, “Look at them, at all that media. News crews, helos, camera flashes.”

“And?” Gabriel asked impatiently.

“Do you want the world to see the elite of our naval defense running for their lives, screaming, pushing one another around to get out of here faster, scattering like a bunch of scared cats? Because that’s what’s gonna happen, no matter how you try to manage this. I, for one, won’t give anyone this satisfaction. I, for one, am staying.”

Silence fell between them for a few seconds. She turned and kneeled next to the German Shepherd, taking his head in her hands and rubbing him behind his ears.

“Rambo, how sure are you, buddy?”

“He’s pretty sure,” the dog’s handler replied.

She turned back toward Jeremy and Gabriel, and asked, “Then? What’s it gonna be? Anyone keeping me company on the USS
Fletcher
to see the demonstration of our best weapon yet?”

“Yes,” Gabriel Moore said. “I’ll stay. Let’s do this.”

“You?” she asked Jeremy

“Me? I wasn’t going anywhere,” he smiled.

“All right, then, let’s laser blow something up,” she said with the excited smile of a child who’s going to try a new toy.

She signaled Captain Meecham, who immediately turned toward the choir and signaled them.

They ended “The Banner of the Sea” before the second chorus and switched to the familiar notes of the national anthem.

Everyone stood, turned toward the flag, and placed their hands on their hearts, as the choir sang the anthem.