The Operative (6 page)
Authors: Andrew Britton
“It’s not the technology,” he said. “It’s the lack of privacy. The exponential noise. What spy would welcome that?”
Allison smiled at something she read on her display. She started pecking out words of her own. “Sorry. As much as I’m enjoying your ‘poor us’ monologue, I have to respond to Col’s latest tweet.”
“My point is made,” he said confidently.
“Your point is beside the ... ,” she said, typing slowly with the sides of her thumbs, pausing once or twice to check for misspellings before she returned the phone to her purse. “Done,” she said.
“What’s the word from the front?”
“The red carpet is lined with local paparazzi and ready for the glitterati to begin arriving.”
Kealey glanced at his wristwatch. “It’s a quarter to four,” he said. “Why don’t we take a leisurely walk back to the car, get my sports jacket and your high heels, and head over to the center?”
“Sounds good.” She hooked her arm in Kealey’s and gave the creature in the tank a final look as they strolled away. The medusa tumbled through the water on an internal current, bumped up randomly, briefly, against another jellyfish, then spiraled away. It was a beautiful, functional life.
But hollow,
she thought. You could sum them up in a brochure. They weren’t conflicted, the way Ryan Kealey was, yearning for peace but missing the thrill of the hunt, walking chastely beside her yet caring deeply and wanting more.
she thought. You could sum them up in a brochure. They weren’t conflicted, the way Ryan Kealey was, yearning for peace but missing the thrill of the hunt, walking chastely beside her yet caring deeply and wanting more.
She hugged Kealey’s arm a little tighter, cherishing the prolonged contact, and quietly thanked God for the good that came with the bad. It didn’t make life easy, but they at least could actually
hold
each other.
hold
each other.
And walk away from the fish tank.
The petite woman with short dark hair and Asian eyes approached room 306 of the Baltimore Hilton. There was a
DO NOT DISTURB
sign on the door handle. She ignored it and swiped her key card, entering the large, modern room with its panoramic view of the city’s Inner Harbor.
DO NOT DISTURB
sign on the door handle. She ignored it and swiped her key card, entering the large, modern room with its panoramic view of the city’s Inner Harbor.
The harbor had come a long way since its taxpayer-paid restoration in the early eighties. Much like Times Square, prostitutes and crackheads were “relocated” or arrested, and their tainted syringes and condoms, which clung to the grates of gutters, were finally cleaned out. Warehouses, crack dens, rotting fuel tankers, and out-of-favor dog tracks were replaced by new shopping malls, fine dining, a world-class aquarium, and a new convention center. These improvements helped draw other corporate entities back into the suddenly decorous setting, bringing tourists and families back into the historic marina and closer to its famous “star-spangled” Fort McHenry. And thanks in part to hometown hero Cal Ripken, Jr.—and his just over 2,000 consecutive played games record, which was quickly sneaking up on record holder Lou Gehrig’s 2,130 games—the Baltimore Orioles got their new brick Camden Yards stadium in the early nineties, nearly completing the once-sagging city’s late twentieth-century facelift.
But somehow, unlike Midtown Manhattan’s redo, no matter how many distractions and special events tried to cover up Baltimore’s seamy history, echoes still hummed from the still neglected canneries lining the shore, from years upon years of painfully obtained sugarcane and oysters-turned-mother-of-pearl that were toiled through and exported by gifted, poorly paid women who needed pennies for provisions and by skilled slaves who sorely needed their autonomy liberated, as is memorialized in the often sightseer-slighted Museum of Industry.
The woman put away her key card as the door clicked shut behind her, went to the dresser, and opened the second dresser drawer from the bottom. She withdrew a black, satchel-style photographer’s bag, pulled it up by the strap, and hefted it over her shoulder. With its bulky contents, it weighed between 5 and 6 pounds, which was substantial but not heavy enough to make carrying it difficult.
She wore a sleeveless champagne-colored blouse and black Capri pants with a damask rose printed on the right outer thigh, and had a wireless mobile headset on her right ear. She also wore trendy sixteen-button gloves. In her line of work, she thought, women had two advantages: they could get close to men of influence, and it was easy not to leave fingerprints.
My line of work,
twenty-one year-old Jasni Osman reflected bitterly.
twenty-one year-old Jasni Osman reflected bitterly.
Three years ago, the gifted gymnast was training for the Singapore Youth Olympics. All she had ever wanted was to express herself in movement, revel in the joy of being free. Then her eldest brother, Yusuf, a journalist, was arrested for what the ruling People’s Action Party termed radical activities and sentenced to thirty years in prison. He suggested from his prison cell that she could help him by attending a meeting of
Jamaah Anshorut Tauhid
at a local mosque. Although she had to pray apart from the men, in keeping with strict tradition, the organization’s religious instructors fully welcomed her as a daughter of Islam, instructing her on the lies and deceit of their government’s rulers and the hateful imperialism of their masters, the United States.
Jamaah Anshorut Tauhid
at a local mosque. Although she had to pray apart from the men, in keeping with strict tradition, the organization’s religious instructors fully welcomed her as a daughter of Islam, instructing her on the lies and deceit of their government’s rulers and the hateful imperialism of their masters, the United States.
Seven months later she was arrested in a raid on a
JAT
camp at Aceh, Indonesia, accused of being a courier of illegal funds. Her captors were American agents, and she vividly recalled the terrible place to which she was brought in Jakarta, the suffocating torture by the CIA, the brutal sodomy committed by the
BIN,
the state’s fearful
Badan Intelijen Negara.
Before her arrest, she had been interested only in bringing down the PAP and freeing her brother. Now she wanted jihad against all oppressors of the Muslim people.
JAT
camp at Aceh, Indonesia, accused of being a courier of illegal funds. Her captors were American agents, and she vividly recalled the terrible place to which she was brought in Jakarta, the suffocating torture by the CIA, the brutal sodomy committed by the
BIN,
the state’s fearful
Badan Intelijen Negara.
Before her arrest, she had been interested only in bringing down the PAP and freeing her brother. Now she wanted jihad against all oppressors of the Muslim people.
Captivity and restraint were unthinkable to Jasni. It took repeated assaults from the
BIN,
in her cell, for Jasni to locate and steal the key to the restraints of the waterboard. After a near drowning the Americans left her—and she escaped, using her flexibility to hide and then to cling to the underside of the very nondescript scout vehicle they were using to hunt her. She returned to the mosque, committed to jihad, and was assigned by
JAT
leader Al Su’al to
Alef,
the group responsible for bringing bloodshed to the American homeland.
BIN,
in her cell, for Jasni to locate and steal the key to the restraints of the waterboard. After a near drowning the Americans left her—and she escaped, using her flexibility to hide and then to cling to the underside of the very nondescript scout vehicle they were using to hunt her. She returned to the mosque, committed to jihad, and was assigned by
JAT
leader Al Su’al to
Alef,
the group responsible for bringing bloodshed to the American homeland.
Today she would honor all those who had helped her on her journey—and her brother, who was still languishing in that filthy prison.
Before leaving the room, she slipped two fingers into the front change pocket of her Capris, extracted a red glass marble. She held it for a moment, enjoying its smooth, cool exterior and the strange heart that seemed to beat within. A sense of well-being permeated her, and she reluctantly put it in the drawer. Then she pushed the drawer shut, adjusted the satchel so it hung more comfortably on her shoulder, and bowed her head.
Oh, Allah, I will infiltrate the enemy and kill them without fear of death.
Jasni Osman left the room and went downstairs. Soon afterward a young male stepped from the elevator. Wearing a navy blue sports jacket and dark trousers, he used his key card to enter the room and took his specified package from the dresser.
It was shortly after 5:00 p.m. when he dropped his colored marble in the drawer and exited.
The order to strike would come over the headset exactly thirteen minutes later.
Colin Dearborn frowned as he got on the fast-food line at the rear of the convention center. Almost fifteen bucks for a chili dog, a side—chips or fries or a paper cup of slaw—and a Coke was nuts. The disorganized mass of customers, paying more attention to their cell phones than to the lines, and the glacially slow service didn’t help.
Faced with the prospect of languishing there awhile, Colin slid his smartphone from his pants pocket to tweet his displeasure. As a contributing editor to the
Cavalier,
UVA’s student newspaper, he’d been an enthusiastic champion of fully integrating the grid into its content delivery model. While he wasn’t among the hard-core geeks who insisted print journalism was dead, it had clearly become the lowest-growth segment of a broader information market.
Cavalier,
UVA’s student newspaper, he’d been an enthusiastic champion of fully integrating the grid into its content delivery model. While he wasn’t among the hard-core geeks who insisted print journalism was dead, it had clearly become the lowest-growth segment of a broader information market.
He opened his Twitter application and thought a moment, smoothing his chin beard between his thumb and forefinger. Getting his message across in 140 characters or less was an enjoyable challenge. In a sense it was like composing a haiku; you had to be super clear and tight with your writing.
His thumbs rapidly flurried over his touch pad as he typed: #Food vendors// This is a career fair. We r here looking 4 #JOBS//. #Affordable // hot dogs wanted. Lower prices, plz
Finishing the update, Colin scrolled down his timeline to check the responses to his earlier tweets and smiled to see one his aunt had pecked out minutes before: On way from aquarium w/RK. Bringing u jellyfish burger. Lettuce, tomato, fries. Pick tentacles w/stingers out b4 you eat.
Colin considered calling her the old-fashioned way so he could ask her to bring something to eat, but he figured he might miss her, anyway. He’d turned the volume down on his phone so it wouldn’t sound in the middle of the interviews he had been conducting with company recruiters and potential employees, all of which would be used to write his story for the school paper.
Closing the app, he put the phone back into his pocket and realized the line in front of him had shortened while he’d stood there tweeting. It was still another ten minutes before he reached the cashier and five more before somebody gave him his order in one of those cardboard carrying trays that resembled egg crates.
Colin eased from the roiling mass of customers to look for a table, saw one on his left, and rushed over, holding his tray in front of him. A woman in a huggy tan-colored blouse and loose-fitting Capri pants with a big stuffed photographer’s satchel on her shoulder stood directly between him and the table. He noticed her partly because she was very attractive, and also because she seemed strangely oblivious to the hustle and bustle around her—neither recruiter nor job seeker.
Reporter?
He was squeezing past the woman when she abruptly turned, banging her satchel into his elbow so hard that his soda cup tipped over sideways. Halting in his tracks, Colin tried to catch it with one hand but was too late. It had spilled over everything else on the tray, drenching his chili dog and fries in a foaming puddle of Coke.
Colin’s angry eyes snapped up at the woman. She was oblivious to their collision, and it was then that he saw the earpiece of a Bluetooth headset on one side of her face and realized she must be listening to somebody over the phone.
“Pay attention, idiot!” he shouted after her.
People around him turned to see what was up as the woman made her way through the crowd as if he wasn’t there.
Colin looked back down at his flooded tray. Frowning, he walked over to a row of trash bins on one side of the dining area. He shook off the soggy hot dog and gulped it down, then dumped his fries into the bin labeled FOOD and the tray into one that said RECYCLABLES. Turning, he saw that the table he’d been approaching was still unoccupied and headed for an empty seat. He needed a couple of minutes to chill—and post another status update. People: if you MUST carry a bag or backpack in crowded places, plz b aware of ur turn radius AND the people around you.
Colin put away the phone and looked around. Another thing about those bags, was anyone even scanning the oversize monstrosities? He’d seen guards in the center’s Pratt Street lobby, but he was pretty sure they didn’t have metal detectors at the door. Also, he hadn’t noticed any security checks whatsoever over at the skyway entrance from the Hilton Hotel.
You can check on all that later, write it up as a sidebar,
he thought as he eyed a bag of chips someone had left behind on another table. Scooting over and grabbing it, he felt slightly redeemed, as if the universe had regained a little bit of balance.
he thought as he eyed a bag of chips someone had left behind on another table. Scooting over and grabbing it, he felt slightly redeemed, as if the universe had regained a little bit of balance.
Tearing open the bag and snacking down happily, Colin left the food area, his eyes actively searching for the woman so he could return the nudge and even the scales a little more.
From the start, Julie Harper had realized that agreeing to cochair the planning committee
and
deliver the keynote speech for tonight’s advanced nursing conference was a recipe for trouble. No one had forced her to micromanage the entire agenda. As her husband, Jon, had sweetly reminded her before they left the house, “Most of this is none of your goddamn business.”
and
deliver the keynote speech for tonight’s advanced nursing conference was a recipe for trouble. No one had forced her to micromanage the entire agenda. As her husband, Jon, had sweetly reminded her before they left the house, “Most of this is none of your goddamn business.”
She didn’t disagree. But in a town where image was everything and spies and saboteurs were everywhere, where a social disaster was also a political disaster, hands-on was the only way to be. Jon knew that, too. After three decades of marriage—most of that spent in Washington—he had come to rely on his wife to have his back like this.
What was it that the former first lady had told her? “You have to host to be seen. You have to host well to matter.”
The Baltimore Convention Center contracted out to a professional catering service that set the course list and handled the food preparation for all its banquets. Even if you paid their fee and chose not to use the food, no one else got in the door. She was assured they knew their business and wouldn’t need her input, but that would make this conference no different from every other conference.
That was not “hosting well.”
So she fretted, even as H hour approached. Was the coquilles Saint-Jacques really the best choice for a seafood entrée? They had assured her it would be, but she’d insisted they use only a high-quality imported Gruyère in the recipe. She’d paid for the upgrade out of pocket. Or rather, her husband did. He hated to see her upset because of something that money could fix. And what about their wine pairing? Did they have a white varietal, something textured and flowery like Esprit de Beaucastel Blanc? As for the poultry offering, Julie had requested—and paid for—a substitution for the caterer’s chicken Kiev. She wanted a lighter alternative. Lemon chicken, for example, was a reliable crowd pleaser. And what about the vegetarians or, God help her, the vegans? Asparagus with plum tomato casserole was the expensive solution.
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