Unholy Code (A Lana Elkins Thriller) (17 page)

I watch her drive away, pleased that she’s gone, unlike a taxi driver, who might have wanted to pick me up in an hour—for an added fee, of course—so that he could take a dinner break at my expense. With the sky darkening, I notice that it’s that time of day.

I don’t want anyone looking out for me. I have plans. Left to their own devices, our leaders from the President on down would have us all spying on friends, neighbors, and strangers. How despicable is that? Like the reprehensible Operation TIPS program after 9/11, which would have given the U.S. more citizens spying on one another than the Stasi had in the former East Germany. Popular opinion drove the proposed TIPS operation into the ground, but the weight of public opinion these days is driven more by paranoia than it was even back then.

I enter the facility, which looks less like a healing center than an office building for boiler-room brokers. So much for the architecture of awe in the design of a sanctuary.

Carrying my briefcase, which hides the main reason I’ve made this trip—it surely wasn’t just to observe Lana grovel with guilt over gambling—I walk up to the meeting room on the second floor and see that she’s not there. I look at my watch. There’s still time.
Come on
,
Lana
.

With only five minutes to go, my impatience makes me squirm in my seat. And then she walks in.

I observe her only at an angle. While this will be the third meeting we’ve shared, we’ve hardly talked at all, although a few words did pass between us at the coffeemaker a month ago. That encounter definitely gave me a thrill, making me wonder when we’d meet for the last time. Now I know the answer: never. This will be it, if I’m successful with the device I’m carrying. I had wondered how surprised she’d be if there had been a revealing, climactic moment, an unveiling of me, if you will. I think she would have been shocked to find out who I am. But maybe I’m giving myself too much credit. She might have her suspicions already, for all I know, but there have never been fewer than fifteen of us at the meetings. Tonight it’s especially busy with Lana the twenty-first person to show up. I wonder if she’s counting, too. And if she’ll find that propitious, a winning hand at a game I know she plays. I suspect she’s savvy enough to be a card counter.

And here comes number twenty-two. He slips past the door less than ninety seconds after his charge. I’d give odds—and it’s fun to put it that way in a room full of repentant gamblers—that the African-American man is her FBI-issued security. He might as well be wearing a blue jacket with the Bureau’s acronym blazing across his back in iridescent letters. He has chiseled features and looks alert and intelligent. Too much so for the circumstances. Most of these people look beaten down by debt, doubt, and their affliction. He looks like a winner all around, a warrior. No, I’m not buying him for a man with a gambling problem. I’m buying him as a man with a security problem: Lana Elkins.

It’ll be interesting to see if he tries to join in at some point.

He never does. There’s not a lot of talk during the meeting; it seems to reflect the lack of interaction beforehand. A dourness pervades the room, as if something has sucked out all of the oxygen. I finally nod in what I think is an encouraging manner when an older man with a bright white beard speaks up in support of Lana. Yes, she was strong. Yes, she blocked my efforts to flood her phone with casino ads … for awhile. But my goal wasn’t simply to have her gamble. My goal has always been to keep her distracted so Steel Fist can kill her, or have her killed, which would only encourage his subscribers to commit more mayhem. And gambling is sidetracking her. She just said, “I can’t get it out of my head.” That’s the idea, Lana. I want you thinking about gambling when you could be thinking about your survival.

After the meeting ends, she hangs around long enough not to attract attention for leaving in a rush. Predictably, the man I picked out as her FBI agent follows suit.

Between him, Lana, and me, there are two gamblers. No one’s behind me, but that’s just luck. If someone appears, I’ll have to find a reason to delay, a sudden return to the center as though I’ve forgotten something. Thankfully, I don’t need to. What is even better is I immediately see that Lana has angle-parked her Prius by the dark, slatted fence. I dressed in black slacks and a dark top, knowing what I planned to do. I’d imagined executing my next maneuver by stepping away from the meeting for a bathroom break. But as soon as I saw the likely agent, I knew he might decide to follow me if I left that room, and I could ill afford to have been caught sneaking around Lana’s car then.
Or now
.

What I plan should take less than ten seconds, but if I’m caught it’ll get ugly fast. I 
can’t
be caught.

I’m planning to drop low behind the fence when she climbs into her vehicle. Then I’ll reach through the slats and try to carry out my plan. And that might still work, but right now she’s stopping again to talk to the handsome guy who’s been trailing her all evening. To anybody else it might look natural enough: an attractive woman with a striking man chatting after a meeting they’ve both attended. But Lana’s not flirting, not with her arms folded tightly across her chest. I sense tension, possibly for reasons all my own.

But now it’s getting interesting. As they start to wander toward her car once more, they turn away from me. I’m no longer in their peripheral vision, if they ever noticed me at all. Recognizing this, I slip behind the slatted fence and move through the darkness along it toward her Prius. They’re still turned away. I can almost hear them, which means they can almost hear me.

With a breath I drop down to my knees, dig into my briefcase and pull out an electronic tracking device. They’re standing by the rear hatch of her car. I swear silently when they shift positions again. I worry this
pas de deux
is planned, that they’ve spotted me somehow and are coordinating their coverage. In fact, his gaze drifts over to the fence. I flatten myself on the sidewalk and listen for long seconds.

Just do it
, I tell myself. It worked for Nike.

I reach through the slats and under the car. I have to stretch so hard the side of a board digs into my armpit. It hurts like hell but the magnet on the locator is not finding metal. There’s so much plastic crap on cars now. I stretch so hard I’m cutting off blood to my arm. This is taking a lot more than ten seconds. My fingertips tingle and start to go numb. The device finally clicks when it clamps to the chassis. A soft sound that to me is deafening.

I freeze, not even breathing. I withdraw my arm carefully, feel the blood starting to pound through my veins. I try not to make the slightest noise. I listen intently to see if they’re talking—or walking toward me.

They’re saying good-bye. The normalcy of the moment is undisturbed. The
click
didn’t register … apparently. But I take nothing for granted.

I have to get away before she gets in her car and puts on her lights and backs away. The slats won’t hide me.

I hear her take a few steps. She opens the car door, then closes it. But the Prius doesn’t move, and Lana’s friend or FBI agent or whatever he is stands off to the side, as if to watch her back up. I fear making any sounds.

As soon she starts her engine, I look behind me and, staying low, I scramble backward, commando style, disappearing just as Lana backs up and her headlights throw shadows from the slats I’d been hiding behind seconds ago.

She drives off, followed by the man in a Dodge Charger. It looks government issue.

I spring to my feet and look around. I see no one. In the next instant I’m brushing myself off and requesting another car from Uber. I walk down to the corner and a new female driver greets me. I ask her to take me to the Watergate Hotel.

The device on Lana’s car is not super-sophisticated. The first time she goes through security at Fort Meade they’ll discover it. Which is fine; she’ll know people are getting dangerously close to her. But I don’t think she’s going to make it to Meade.

In the morning, she’ll be going to the Senate to testify before the Select Committee on Intelligence. That’s on the public record. I presume the senators are planning on a circus, which is no more prophetic than suggesting that a monkey will scratch its scrotum in the course of a day. The deputy director of the NSA will be there to testify as well.

So there’s time to put everything and everyone into play.

I’m smiling when the driver pulls up to the broad curved exterior of the Watergate. If it was good enough for Nixon’s cronies to break into, it’s good enough for me to launch my far more elaborate crimes from above its opulent, chandeliered lobby.

I order room service. The kitchen offers an excellent hamburger, which might sound downmarket for the Watergate but it really is superb, and I’m an unabashed carnivore. I remind the staff to send up the freshest possible fries.

After I eat I go immediately to work online. First, I must send a message to Steel Fist. It’s short: the code he needs to track the electronic beacon. I’ll leave it to him to decide how to disseminate it. It’s not as though he can put it out to ten million subscribers without it getting back to Lana in seconds. But he must have some killers he trusts. We all do, even if it’s only ourselves.

I certainly feel murderous sending him my anonymous message. I wouldn’t give Lana Elkins twenty-four hours after this, if Vinko Horvat truly knows his business. And his business lately has been whipping up his troops to kill Lana and her family.

“Have at it,” I say to myself as I issue another
click
, dispatching the code to his Idaho stronghold.

But I’m not through with Vinko just yet. I decide it’s time to give him another tip, almost as juicy. I’m tired of waiting for him to figure it out on his own: in the background of the photo of Emma, her dad, and their new guard dog was an old Malinois with a gray muzzle. That was Cairo, the hound that went after bin Laden.

If Steel Fist is really serious about showing how poor the country’s defenses are—and how necessary he is to the nation’s resurgence—he’ll have that dog killed. And he’ll do it in the most public way possible. Americans have learned to stomach a great many indignities in the past two years, but a “revenge” murder of Cairo would be the
coup d’état
.

Leaving nothing to chance, I also give him the address of the kennel near Hagerstown, Maryland. I even write a headline for Steel Fist so he can immediately grasp the powerful nature of the potential propaganda: “Islamic Terrorists Kill Hero SEAL Dog. ‘Skinned Alive.’ ”

Just do it.

DEPUTY DIRECTOR BOB HOLMES
looked as gray as his suit when Lana spotted him starting up the stairs of the Russell Senate Office Building, a Beaux Arts beauty of marble, granite, and limestone on the north side of the Capitol.

Historic events had taken place inside those walls, but Lana had no illusions that today’s circus would produce the drama or statesmanship that had emerged so memorably in the past.

She reached Holmes as he neared the double-door entrance, trying to hide her dismay at his peaked appearance. He’d sounded tired when they’d spoken on the phone yesterday, and now she had to remind herself that he was seventy-eight. On this morning he looked his age.

“How’s that dog working out for you?” he asked by way of greeting her, jovial despite his washed-out look of weariness.

“Great. He’s moved right into our daily routine like he’s always been part of the clan.”

“Well, that was the plan,” Holmes rhymed with a smile. “You ready for these fools?” he asked as Agent Robin Maray held a door for them.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Don’t let them get your goat.” He leaned closer to her as they strolled into the rotunda with its stately columns and coffered dome, adding, “They’re assholes, the ones gunning for you. Long as you stay cool, you’ll look great compared to their bombast.”

Lana and Holmes, with Agent Maray now a few steps behind them, entered the Dirksen hearing room, a generously wood-paneled expanse with green marble accents. It smelled of old leather and coffee, and made her think of men and their politics, though two women did hold seats on the Select Committee on Intelligence. This would be Lana’s first testimony before the committee.

Another woman was settling in at the witness table, Madeline Emberling, the sandy-haired lawyer who’d spent hours prepping them. After greeting them, Madeline settled back behind a table loaded with her impressive collection of briefing materials. She had two co-counsels assisting her. They perched on the edge of chairs behind her, as though ready to spring into action. Holmes sat to Madeline’s right, Lana to her left.

More than two dozen senators assembled before them. The corpulent Senator Bob Ray Willens of Louisiana nodded at Holmes, but offered Lana only an amused expression, as he might a sausage roasting on a grill at a Fourth of July weenie roast.

Spare me
, she thought, breaking eye contact quickly. His rapt attention felt unbecoming.

The chair of the committee was the senior senator from New York, known for his curt manner, cutting remarks, and remarkable intelligence. He banged the gavel and the assembled fell silent at once. Lana glanced around. Standing room only, which told her the media and Capitol Hill cognoscenti expected the circus Holmes had predicted.