Whitewash (62 page)

Outside the Reid Estate On the Gulf of Mexico

Abda Hassar could see the security perimeter dotted by men in flak jackets and helmets and carrying automatic weapons. On this side of the estate where the energy summit was getting under way the soldiers’ presence would be needed more than their tactics. Abda had counted five limousines, two flanked by a half-dozen black SUVs. All were stopped at the gated entrance by more men. These talked into their cuffs and wore sunglasses with black suits, despite the Florida heat.

Abda expected nothing less than this show of security force. He knew the badges he, Khaled and Qasim had acquired, the badges with the magic strip of bars at the bottom, would allow them entrance. But he also knew there would still be metal detectors they would need to pass through. Perhaps even body searches. It made no difference. None of them would be carrying any weapons. There would be no explosives, not even liquid explosives.

He glanced at the time. Soon he would report for work at the catering company. He planned to arrive five minutes before his shift was to begin. He believed five minutes would be early enough to satisfy his temporary employer, but not so early that he looked too eager.

Khaled would report several hours before. As a part of the prereception group he would be setting up tables and chairs, arranging table linens, flatware and centerpieces. Khaled had accepted the assignment with no protest when Abda insisted, even though Khaled understood the concoction, its properties and dosage better than any of them. As its creator it would make sense that Khaled would want to be the one who personally saw it to fruition. And yet, he had accepted and recognized that as their leader Abda would be the one. It would be Abda’s responsibility to administer the fatal concoction.

It would be Abda who presented the deadly meal to the President of the United States.

Outside the Reid Estate On the Gulf of Mexico

Abda Hassar could see the security perimeter dotted by men in flak jackets and helmets and carrying automatic weapons. On this side of the estate where the energy summit was getting under way the soldiers’ presence would be needed more than their tactics. Abda had counted five limousines, two flanked by a half-dozen black SUVs. All were stopped at the gated entrance by more men. These talked into their cuffs and wore sunglasses with black suits, despite the Florida heat.

Abda expected nothing less than this show of security force. He knew the badges he, Khaled and Qasim had acquired, the badges with the magic strip of bars at the bottom, would allow them entrance. But he also knew there would still be metal detectors they would need to pass through. Perhaps even body searches. It made no difference. None of them would be carrying any weapons. There would be no explosives, not even liquid explosives.

He glanced at the time. Soon he would report for work at the catering company. He planned to arrive five minutes before his shift was to begin. He believed five minutes would be early enough to satisfy his temporary employer, but not so early that he looked too eager.

Khaled would report several hours before. As a part of the prereception group he would be setting up tables and chairs, arranging table linens, flatware and centerpieces. Khaled had accepted the assignment with no protest when Abda insisted, even though Khaled understood the concoction, its properties and dosage better than any of them. As its creator it would make sense that Khaled would want to be the one who personally saw it to fruition. And yet, he had accepted and recognized that as their leader Abda would be the one. It would be Abda’s responsibility to administer the fatal concoction.

It would be Abda who presented the deadly meal to the President of the United States.

Tallahassee Regional Airport

Jason stopped to get a mocha latte as soon as he got off the plane. The two Bloody Marys had gone straight to his head. Of course they did this early in the morning and without anything else in his stomach. He had to admit it was nice to sit back and chill, but he’d forgotten that he’d need to be able to drive. He had plenty of time. He’d sip his coffee, go down and get his bag. Give his head some time to clear, then get the rental car.

He was thinking about the BMW Z4 and smiled. He’d never owned or driven anything like it.

He passed by one of the airport terminal gates and caught a glimpse of the overhead TV screen. What he saw stopped him dead in his tracks. No one noticed. People simply went around him. Passengers were lined up, ready to board. Very few paid attention to the TV screen. No one paid attention to Jason. While everyone else left their seats to claim their place in line, Jason, without taking his eyes off CNN’s crawl, found a seat directly under the TV and dropped into it.

At first he thought it might be an announcement about the Appropriations Committee vote. Then he saw the handcuffs.

On the screen a handcuffed Senator Allen was being escorted down the Capitol steps. The noise around Jason drowned out the sound, so he had to read the crawl at the bottom of the screen:

Tallahassee Regional Airport

Jason stopped to get a mocha latte as soon as he got off the plane. The two Bloody Marys had gone straight to his head. Of course they did this early in the morning and without anything else in his stomach. He had to admit it was nice to sit back and chill, but he’d forgotten that he’d need to be able to drive. He had plenty of time. He’d sip his coffee, go down and get his bag. Give his head some time to clear, then get the rental car.

He was thinking about the BMW Z4 and smiled. He’d never owned or driven anything like it.

He passed by one of the airport terminal gates and caught a glimpse of the overhead TV screen. What he saw stopped him dead in his tracks. No one noticed. People simply went around him. Passengers were lined up, ready to board. Very few paid attention to the TV screen. No one paid attention to Jason. While everyone else left their seats to claim their place in line, Jason, without taking his eyes off CNN’s crawl, found a seat directly under the TV and dropped into it.

At first he thought it might be an announcement about the Appropriations Committee vote. Then he saw the handcuffs.

On the screen a handcuffed Senator Allen was being escorted down the Capitol steps. The noise around Jason drowned out the sound, so he had to read the crawl at the bottom of the screen:

EchoEnergy

It took Eric three tries before he remembered and found the building that housed the lab. He quickly stocked a couple of soda machines to get rid of his load. Then he left the empty hand truck in a corner. If Bubba or anyone else caught him he’d say he was trying to find a bathroom. Not such a stretch of the truth. The maze of hallways took him one way and then another. At this rate he’d never find a bathroom, let alone the EchoLab.

He pulled the miniature GPS handheld device out of a holster attached to his belt. The holster looked like a cell phone carrier, but the tracking system fit perfectly with a slight bulge. Eric stopped for a minute to view the tiny screen and get his bearings. Russ had programmed in all the locations. He was sure the door he needed was to his right, but when he pushed the door open there was no Sabrina. The steam of the morning hit him in the face with a smell he couldn’t quite place. He was just about to close the door when he heard a rustle in the crepe myrtle against the building.

“Bree?”

Somehow she looked more vulnerable in the T-shirt and running shorts. She didn’t say a word until the door closed gently behind her.

“I’m in,” she said, but Eric realized it was for Russ and Howard’s benefit, not out of relief.

“He gave me a key card,” Eric told her, holding it up like the prize it was.

“Really?”

He could see her mind going somewhere they hadn’t planned, exactly like his had been ever since Bubba handed the thing to him.

“I’m just saying it made it easier,” he explained, now wishing he hadn’t opened his mouth.

“He has a key card,” she said in the tiny microphone. And then to Eric she said, “Just please don’t run off playing Steve Austin with it.”

He gave her his best hurt look and readjusted his uniform cap on his sweat-soaked head. “Gotta go. I have a lot of soda machines to fill.”

They stood there staring at each other for a moment. Despite his earlier assessment of her looking vulnerable he saw only determination in her eyes. She was in familiar territory and on a mission. He hoped that would be enough to drive her. Covert missions were more his style.

“You gonna be okay?” he asked anyway.

“Yeah,” she said, nodding, but her eyes shifted away and back like it was a decision she still had to make.

“Be careful, okay?”

“I will. You be careful, too. Don’t get cocky with that key card.”

“Me? Cocky?” He smiled and turned, starting down the hallway. When he glanced back over his shoulder, Sabrina was already disappearing through the stairwell door.

He checked his watch and pulled out the GPS device again. He needed to backtrack, get his hand truck and return to the vehicle to get another load. Then he thought he might just wander by William Sidel’s office.

EchoEnergy

It took Eric three tries before he remembered and found the building that housed the lab. He quickly stocked a couple of soda machines to get rid of his load. Then he left the empty hand truck in a corner. If Bubba or anyone else caught him he’d say he was trying to find a bathroom. Not such a stretch of the truth. The maze of hallways took him one way and then another. At this rate he’d never find a bathroom, let alone the EchoLab.

He pulled the miniature GPS handheld device out of a holster attached to his belt. The holster looked like a cell phone carrier, but the tracking system fit perfectly with a slight bulge. Eric stopped for a minute to view the tiny screen and get his bearings. Russ had programmed in all the locations. He was sure the door he needed was to his right, but when he pushed the door open there was no Sabrina. The steam of the morning hit him in the face with a smell he couldn’t quite place. He was just about to close the door when he heard a rustle in the crepe myrtle against the building.

“Bree?”

Somehow she looked more vulnerable in the T-shirt and running shorts. She didn’t say a word until the door closed gently behind her.

“I’m in,” she said, but Eric realized it was for Russ and Howard’s benefit, not out of relief.

“He gave me a key card,” Eric told her, holding it up like the prize it was.

“Really?”

He could see her mind going somewhere they hadn’t planned, exactly like his had been ever since Bubba handed the thing to him.

“I’m just saying it made it easier,” he explained, now wishing he hadn’t opened his mouth.

“He has a key card,” she said in the tiny microphone. And then to Eric she said, “Just please don’t run off playing Steve Austin with it.”

He gave her his best hurt look and readjusted his uniform cap on his sweat-soaked head. “Gotta go. I have a lot of soda machines to fill.”

They stood there staring at each other for a moment. Despite his earlier assessment of her looking vulnerable he saw only determination in her eyes. She was in familiar territory and on a mission. He hoped that would be enough to drive her. Covert missions were more his style.

“You gonna be okay?” he asked anyway.

“Yeah,” she said, nodding, but her eyes shifted away and back like it was a decision she still had to make.

“Be careful, okay?”

“I will. You be careful, too. Don’t get cocky with that key card.”

“Me? Cocky?” He smiled and turned, starting down the hallway. When he glanced back over his shoulder, Sabrina was already disappearing through the stairwell door.

He checked his watch and pulled out the GPS device again. He needed to backtrack, get his hand truck and return to the vehicle to get another load. Then he thought he might just wander by William Sidel’s office.

Sabrina knew the best thing Eric could do for her now was let her do what she came to do. Still, it was hard watching him go in the opposite direction. He needed to move on to the next building, stocking soda machines. Anything out of the ordinary would draw too much attention.

She took the stairs, stopping on each landing to listen. Other than Pasha and O’Hearn, she didn’t think anyone would recognize her with the new haircut and in running shorts and a T-shirt. She checked her arms to see if the spray-on tan had streaked in the flood of humidity.

She leaned her ear against the stairwell door.

“Are you there yet?”

Russ’s voice made her jump again.

“Jesus!” she whispered. “You have to stop doing that.”

“I’m just checking on you.”

“You’re scaring the crap out of me.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I never thought I’d hear you say crap.”

“Yeah, well, I never thought I’d be sneaking back into this place.”

“Okay, so I won’t scare the crap out of you. Just remember to update us, okay?”

“Okay.”

On the other side of the door she listened again before she started down the hallway. It was still quiet. No computers or copiers were humming yet. Not even the fluorescent lights were on. The sun streamed in through the small milky-glass window set in the laboratory doors.

She tried the entrance closest to Dr Lansik’s office. Sometimes it was locked. Today she lucked out. Silence here, too. Lab coats hung from the antique stand. Freshly washed test tubes dried on a paper towel by the sink. Bottles containing various degrees of brown liquid lined the samples shelf. Sabrina was struck by how normal everything looked, as if she’d never left.
What did she expect?
Life goes on. Even without her and Anna Copello the lab ran smoothly. Maybe she, at the very least, expected to see a mess. Weren’t she and Anna always cleaning up after the guys?

Her father had told her once that he didn’t believe in teams of scientists. One ego would always bruise more easily than another. And brilliant minds weren’t necessarily generous ones, especially when it came to sharing credit. But Sabrina thought it was absurd that anyone would believe she’d murder Anna Copello over a promotion.

Dwight Lansik’s office remained the same. No one had even moved out the old blue sofa. They had, however, removed his framed credentials. Bright white squares revealed their existence where the walls had stained around them.

First things first. She sat down at Lansik’s computer and turned it on. Everything booted up normally, which meant the computer was still connected to the network server.

She clicked on Control Panel and found the program file under Network that Russ had instructed her he’d need. Then she accessed her own e-mail simply by typing in her password. No one had thought to cancel her account. She typed in Russ’s e-mail address, attached the program file and hit Send. He had told her he needed her to open a door for him and leave it open. Sending him the e-mail opened that door. The attached program file would allow access to anything and everything stored on the network server. It was similar to how hackers managed to download viruses. Sabrina didn’t completely understand it. But she understood enough to know that if the processing plant’s files of hurricane debris were still on the server, Russ would be able to find them now.

“I just sent the e-mail,” she said into her mic. “Let me know if you’ve received it.”

She waited. Damn! What if it wasn’t as easy as Russ had made it sound? Seconds ticked by. It felt like an eternity of silence.

“Got it!” he finally came back.

Sabrina closed her e-mail, but left the computer on. Now she needed Lansik’s password for Russ to be able to download all those coded files that were stored on the network server. In his notebook he said he’d left it back in his office “in plain sight for any true scientist to discover.” Russ insisted it would be at least six to eight characters. What if it was part of the degrees and certificates that had been removed? It was possible. All of them were scientific degrees of some sort.

The small bulletin board behind Lansik’s desk contained the usual stuff that most people put on their office cubicles or bulletin boards, with the exception that Lansik’s had a scientific flavor. There were several
New Yorker
cartoons, a newspaper article on EchoEnergy that included quotes from Lansik, and a small strip of paper that looked like it had come from a fortune cookie: “You will be rich and famous one day.” At the bottom was a series of lucky numbers. It couldn’t be that easy.

“Are you ready to try one?” she asked.

“Ready,” came his quick reply.

“Okay. 43590.”

“That’s only five numbers.”

“I know,” she told him. “It probably isn’t it, but you said it might be something overly simple.”

Silence.

While she waited she kept examining the room. There wasn’t much here. Lansik kept decorating to a minimum. On one wall was a small periodic table, one of those ancient eleven-by-seven laminated posters like the ones found in high-school science classrooms. On the opposite wall was a small clock.

“Nada,” Russ said. “I tried it backward and forward.”

She glanced at her watch. She was taking too much time. In plain sight, she repeated to herself, for a true scientist. She stared at the periodic table. Could it be some combination? Some joke like oil and water?

Something made her look back at the bulletin board.

There were two quotes from Albert Einstein. The first:

She stared at both for what seemed much too long then finally she said, “Russ, try this, AAxyzxyz.”

She waited again, but not long.

“That’s it! I’m in. Come on back.”

Sabrina smiled and let out a sigh of relief. In a matter of minutes they would have copies of every process the hurricane debris had gone through, including dates and times that they could connect to the satellite photos Russ had copied.

“You have a lot of balls coming back here.”

It took Sabrina a second to realize the voice wasn’t Russ in her ear. It came from behind her. She spun to find O’Hearn standing in the doorway.

“It’s all been a mistake,” Sabrina said. Certainly he’d understand as soon as she told him that she was right about Reactor #5 and about the hurricane debris.

“That’s right. A huge mistake. You were the one who should be dead.”

That’s when she saw the gun in his hand.