The Cassandra Conspiracy (30 page)

PART THREE

CHAPTER 32

Around three o’clock, they hit
the Capital Beltway. Payton took the Beltway around to the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. Exiting at New York Avenue, he fought heavy traffic until he reached Eighteenth and G Streets, the address of the Secret Service’s headquarters facility. Once in the lobby, they passed the local bank’s branch office and a small sandwich shop before Janet saw the list of tenants posted near the elevators.

“Looks like the Secret Service has offices on several floors, but not the whole building,” she said, trying to decide which department they needed. Payton was also working his way down the list, looking for anything with the right-sounding name.

“Nothing here has the right ring to it,” Payton said. “Let’s try Protective Research on the eighth floor.”

As soon as they got off the elevator, Janet saw a
female uniformed security officer, seated behind what appeared to be bulletproof glass, at one end of the corridor. The woman looked up inquisitively as Payton approached.

“We’d like to talk to someone responsible for protecting the
President.”

The Service
was constantly bombarded by a wide range of unstable individuals. Most of the time, these people were harmless, but upon occasion, the person either was violent or became violent easily.

Walk-ins generally weren’t of a violent, but there was always the exception. The receptionist thought briefly about the panic button under the top edge of her desk, but this guy looked normal. There were no signs of fire in his eyes, and he didn’t fidget as he spoke to her. He knew exactly what he was doing. She dropped her right hand from the edge of the desk.
“May I have your name, please.?"

Payton gave her his name, which she made a note of on a scratch pad near her telephone. After checking an extension from her directory listing, she picked up the telephone and dialed the number. She said a few words into the phone, which Payton didn’t hear, then looked up. “Someone will be right with you, Mr. Payton.”

The Secret Service’s intelligence operation fell under the Office of Protective Research, headed by an assistant director. Also included under the same division were the research and development arm of the organization and Technical Security Division. It was to the intelligence offices, the group that receives data relating to groups or individuals who might pose a threat to the President of the United States or to their other people that they protected, that the call announcing Payton's arrival was made. 

A few minutes later, a special agent exited the door at the end of the hall. Since they were the only ones waiting, he walked right over to where they were standing.

“Hi, I’m Ross Whitman. How may I assist you?”  Payton took in the agent:  about forty, hair trimmed to regulation, conservative suit, all ready to pass judgment on them and their story. Agent Whitman smiled at them. Payton didn’t think he’d be smiling when they left.

Payton introduced Janet and himself. Whitman shook hands with both of them. With the introductions out of the way, Payton said, “We have confidential information that could affect
President Varrick’s safety. Is there somewhere we can talk in private?”

“Certainly. Let me get you badged in.”  The agent nodded his head at the receptionist, who reached into her drawer for visitor badges.

After they received their badges and had signed the visitors’ log for non-government personnel, Whitman guided them through the maze of offices, all furnished with standard gray government issue desks and chairs.

Whitman's office was
located off a larger bull pen that housed at least half a dozen agents. Several people appeared  busy at work, doing whatever it was that the Secret Service did when they weren’t guarding the President. Payton guessed that he was looking at a combination of agents and intelligence analysts.

Whitman led them past the offices and into one of the interview rooms. Inside, several armless chairs surrounded a large rectangular conference table. On the wall over the table, Daniel Varrick’s smiling countenance looked down on them. On the side wall hung a molded plastic emblem of the United States Secret Service star–an attempt to brighten up the otherwise drab setting.

Ross Whitman closed the door. “Please have a seat. I’d like to hear what you have for us.” 

As Payton began, Whitman picked up a yellow legal pad and a ballpoint pen. Walk-ins were nothing new. The Service had them at all their field offices at one time or another. Nine times out of ten, a walk-in was a waste of time, but each report had to be checked out before the alleged threat could be dismissed or otherwise discounted.

Whitman had never heard of a walk-in leading to a real threat against any of the Secret Service’s “protectees”. Nonetheless, each person who came across what he or she believed to be a threat against the President or vice President warranted careful review of the information. Of course, when that information alluded to some plot or conspiracy so preposterous as to be ludicrous, the Service filed the report but took no further action.

“This is very awkward for us,” Payton said by way of explanation. “Neither Ms. Phillips nor I has ever been involved in anything this weird, for lack of a better term. By accident, we came across information that leads us to believe that there’s going to be an attempt on the
President's life.”

“What makes you think someone’s going to assassinate the
President?” Whitman uncapped his ballpoint.

Payton explained how he had gotten the errant E
-mail message and how Janet had deciphered it. Then, slowly, he brought Agent Whitman up to date.

Payton fretted at not having a prepared oration ready. He’d had plenty of time to figure out what he was going to say when they got there. He had even thought about it on the trip across the Atlantic, and then again in the car down from Canada. Now as he spoke, everything seemed to come out in a hodgepodge of disjointed statements.

The agent listened attentively to Payton's narrative, occasionally making a few notes. He wasn’t quite sure what he was dealing with. Payton didn’t seem like the kook type, but then you never knew.

“So you and Ms. Phillips began this whole odyssey as a result of an E
-mail message that Ms. Phillips decoded. Is that correct?”

Janet had been sitting quietly, allowing Steve to do the talking. Although she hadn’t given it much thought, she realized that the reception she had expected from the Secret Service was not going to happen.

“Agent Whitman,” Janet said, “what Mr. Payton told you is true. He received the email, obviously by accident, that I deciphered and that led us to Pine Lakes.”

Whitman sat thinking for a moment. “Let’s deal with that end of this, if you will.

First Ms. Phillips, how do you know that Mr. Payton actually received that message in the first place? You weren’t there when he turned on his computer, so all you have to go on is his word.” Whitman saw Payton's face flush.

“Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that you’ve been on a wild goose chase. I’m trying to fill in some of the holes.”

Janet thought about what Whitman had said. He was right that she hadn’t been there when Steve opened up his E-mail box. But then, why would he lie? Whitman continued.

“For all you know, Mr. Payton could have generated the message himself, not that I’m saying he did. But all right, let’s say that you got this transmittal from God-knows-where, then what
did you do?”

With Payton obviously seething, Janet carried on. “I contacted some friends of mine who work at UniNet–it was their database–and they were able to give me the general location of the source.”

“And that was Pine Lakes?” Whitman interjected.

Janet nodded. “So we went up there. We figured that once we had some additional proof, we could give all our evidence to the police.”

“I see,” Agent Whitman said. Payton didn’t like the tone of that response.

“You rent
ed a farm outside of Pine Lakes. What happened then?”

“We checked out the area, trying to determine who could be behind what we believed to be a murder plot. That’s when we settled more or less on Charles Wingate.”

That name drew a reaction from the otherwise passive agent. “The financier?” Agent Whitman asked incredulously.

“Yes,”
Payton watched as the agent made a note on the pad, underlining it several times.

Payton went on. “At that time, I didn’t know who the intended target was, so I went out to look over Wingate’s estate. I couldn’t find anything out. Right after that I started feeling that we were being watched.”

Complete paranoia, Whitman thought. “Watched? What do you mean watched?”

“You know. We weren’t alone. Like someone else was around.”

“I see,” the agent said with more than a hint of disbelief.

“I made at least one trip into Pine Lakes where someone from Wingate’s estate followed me into town and then back to the farm.

“Then during a routine trip to my office, the building maintenance supervisor told me that two men from the telephone company had been in to service my phones. I hadn’t had any problems with the phones, and never called for service.

“
I figured someone had bugged the office, or the phones.”  Payton didn’t like the way this interview was unfolding. The more he talked, the more his paranoia echoed.

When he paused, Agent Whitman cut in, “Did you subsequently find out that your office phones had been bugged?”

“Why no, but that’s what it had to be. Like I said, I never called the phone company.”

“But you don’t know for a fact the phones were bugged, do you?” the agent asked pressing the point. “I mean no one from the telephone company or police checked the phones to see if they had been bugged–right?”

“No, sir, I don’t know that the office phones had been bugged, but they tapped the phones at the farmhouse. I saw the bug.”

Agent Whitman sat back in his chair and folded his arms. “I don’t mean to be difficult, but I’m trying to understand all this. Please excuse my questions. Are you experienced in either telephone systems or electronics, Mr. Payton?”

“No. I’ve installed a couple of extension phones, but I don’t have any formal training in either area.”

“Then you wouldn’t know if what you saw was supposed to be there or not, would you?” Whitman asked pointedly.

“I checked the other phones in the house. None of the other lines had the same electronic module wired into the line that the bedroom phone had. It had to be some sort of wiretap or bug.”

“Please continue, Mr. Payton.”

Payton explained that he and Janet had been watched by people who worked for Charles Wingate, although he knew that again he lacked the needed proof. The more he talked, the more defensive he sounded. Worse, what seemed like so many irrefutable facts to him at the time, didn’t carry the same weight in the harsh light of day. He sensed that Ross Whitman felt the same way.

“A week ago, we decided to leave Pine Lakes. Both Ms. Phillips and I were concerned for our safety.”

“Because you felt that you were being followed, and your phones were tapped?” The agent leaned forward to study Payton as he would a specimen under a magnifying glass.

“Yes and because I had been in touch with Mark Albright right after his father’s death. He asked us to meet him in London. With the heat turned up in Pine Lakes, going to London had a hell of lot of merit, Agent Whitman.”

“Did you meet with Mark Albright?”

“Not exactly. We met Mark at
Wapping station as planned. When we got there, someone had stabbed him. Before he died, he told me that Charles Wingate was behind his father’s death. He also said that Wingate was planning to assassinate the President.”

Agent Whitman was busy
jotting down notes. Then he turned to Janet. “Were you there when Mark Albright talked to Mr. Payton?”

Janet paused. “Yes, but not within earshot.”

“Then you can’t substantiate his story?” Whitman asked, gesturing toward Payton.

Janet thought for a minute,
and then said, “I guess not. But I’m sure it’s true.”

Whitman didn’t bother with a response. “Then what happened?” the agent asked Payton.

“I had told Ms. Phillips that if anything happened at the meeting, she should make her way back to the hotel, which she did. After she cleared out of the station, one of Wingate’s men tried to kill me.”

“They tried to kill you, Mr. Payton?”

Payton tried to quell his rising anger. “Yes. After we found Mark dead, a man tried to push me under a subway train.”

“Obviously, you survived.” Whitman stated, trying hard not to show his disbelief in what he was hearing.

“Would you have found my story more convincing had I been killed, Agent Whitman?”  Payton snapped, his patience at its end. Either Whitman believed what he was telling him or he didn’t. If he didn’t there wasn’t any sense in going on.

“Please remain calm. As I said before, I need to get all this down. I’m sure that you both have been under considerable pressure these past weeks. Maybe an objective third party’s perspective is what’s needed,” the agent said trying to ease the tension in the room.