Agent X (23 page)

“What?” the female marshal called in to her.

“Sorry, nothing.” She flushed the note down the toilet and came out.

Once they were back in the interview room with Bisset, Kate, for the first time, took a good look at him. He was in his early thirties, and even though he was severely balding, he kept the remaining patches of his hair closely cropped. Without paying much attention to his attempted banter on the way over, she remembered his using the line “I’m no fool—I graduated from Stanford Law School.”

“What time is it, Fred?” she asked.

Though he hadn’t noticed it before, he now detected some warmth in her attractive face. He quickly checked his watch and said, “It’s almost two.”

Kate examined him more closely and decided that anyone who would cut his hair that short, drawing attention to the uncomeliness of male pattern baldness, was someone who probably had an inability to interpret common social cues, especially those of rejection. Book-smart with absolutely no people skills, something she suspected was going to be to her advantage. “I’m sorry, where did you say you went to law school?” She was careful to ask the question with just a hint of sarcasm.

“Stanford. I thought I mentioned that.”

“I guess you did. I’m just a little tired. Bet you were the top of your class.” This time the sarcasm was as obvious as she could make it. She glanced at the two marshals and could see that they were experienced enough in handling prisoners that all conversations around them were no more than white noise.

“I made law review,” he answered, trying, but failing, to sound humble.

“It’s pretty obvious how smart you are. Me, I just
thought
I was smart. I’m tired of all this. I’d like to make a statement.”

Bisset straightened up, appearing as though he hadn’t been paying attention and wasn’t sure what she’d said. “You want to make a statement?”

“Can’t get anything past you law-review boys. Yes, I’d like to make a statement.”

“Now you’re being smart.” Quickly he dug into his briefcase and pulled out a pad of legal paper. “Where would you like to start?”

“I’d like to start with an apology to my director, Mr. Lasker.”

“As soon as we get your statement.”

“I see him first or there is no statement.”

“You’re the prisoner, Miss Bannon.”

“This offer expires in five seconds . . . four . . . three . . .”

Bisset grabbed the phone on the desk. “Okay, I’ll get him on the line.”

“No. This has to be in person. Face-to-face. He’s been very good to me, and I owe him that much.”

Bisset stiffened, and it took a moment for him to realize what had to be done next. He dialed the number that the black agent had left him. Bursaw answered, “Director’s office.”

“Yes, this is Assistant United States Attorney Bisset. Miss Bannon has had a change of heart and is willing to make a statement, but first she says she needs to talk to the director.”

“About what?” Bursaw asked, as skeptically as possible.

“She wants to apologize to him.”

“I don’t know if he wants to talk to her.”

“She says she won’t make a statement until she can.”

“Hang on.” Bisset heard the line go on hold, and then, within a minute, Bursaw came back on. “He said he’ll see her. Let me get another agent, and we’ll come down to get her.”

Ten minutes later there was a knock at the door, and when the marshal opened it, Luke Bursaw was standing there, and behind him was Steve Vail. Bisset said, “You’ll bring her right back here after she’s done with the director.” It wasn’t a question but an order.

“The director says she’s got five minutes and that’s all,” Bursaw said. “So you’ll have her back in no more than twenty minutes.”

The elevator car that Kate, Vail, and Bursaw got into had a half-dozen other employees in it, so they didn’t speak until they were out the front door of FBI headquarters. Kate said, “It took you long enough. I almost forgot what you looked like, Stan.”

As they walked toward their car, Vail watched her profile in the clear winter sunlight, her breath clouding the cold air in rhythmic streams. She took a deeper, stuttering breath, her freedom evidently registering. “Actually, it’s Steve.”

“I assume that since you’ve turned me into an escaped federal prisoner, you still haven’t figured out who’s responsible for setting me up.”

“After looking at the evidence, I’d say your innocence is questionable.”

“Then why did you break me out, Stan?”

“I thought by now you’d be ready for a conjugal visit.”

“Suddenly prison isn’t looking so bad.”

They got to the car, and Bursaw climbed in. Kate grabbed Vail and turned him around, kissing him fully. “Thanks, bricklayer.” She got in.

“Let’s see if you’re thanking me when this all goes south.”

Suddenly her smile was gone, and her eyes started to well up. “Sorry, Steve, but all this is scaring me.”

“You’d be a fool not to be scared.” He put his arm around her. Then he took out his credentials and showed them to her.

“I thought you had to give those up to Langston.”

“And who’s the one person in the Bureau who can rescind my being fired?”

“The director?”

“So you’ve got friends in high places. Plus, you’re innocent. Or so I’m told. I promise you you’re not spending another minute in jail.” Then Vail filled her in on his trip to Chicago and the shoot-out he and Kalix had been involved in. He told her about his phone call to the United States Attorney, with him posing as her attorney and Kalix playing the telephone role of his boss, William Langston.

“Kalix did all that for me?” she said.

“What about me?”

“How many times do I have to thank you? You’ve really gotten needy while I’ve been in the big house.”

“But unlike John I’m not trying to suck up to the director,” Vail said.

“That’s a great way to talk about a guy who saved your life.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sure you’ll find some way to get even with him for that.”

AUSA Fred Bisset checked his wristwatch again. It was now exactly twenty minutes since the two agents had left with Kate Bannon, and it was starting to seem a little too long. He again called the extension the black agent had given him for the director’s office. It rang six or seven times before a female answered it. “Hello.”

“
Hello?
This is Assistant United States Attorney Fred Bisset. Let me speak to the director, please.”

“The director? This is the employees’ break room. Let me get you back to the switchboard.”

When the operator came on the line, Bisset again identified himself and asked to be put through to the director’s office. He waited a moment, then heard, “Director Lasker’s office.”

“This is AUSA Bisset. Could I speak to the director, please?”

“I’m sorry, he’s in New York for a regional conference.”

“Then can you transfer me to Assistant Director Langston?”

“I’m sorry, he’s with the director.”

23

As Bursaw drove cautiously through the city’s streets, Vail asked Kate, “Do you have any idea what this is about?”

“It’s all I’ve been thinking about since they came for me. I have no idea.”

“Could it be something to do with the CIA?”

“The CIA? Why them?”

“It’s better if you answer my questions first.”

“Okay. Let’s see, the CIA. The only real contact I’ve had with them was when I had Bureau liaison with them. I was over there almost every day. More there than at headquarters, actually. But I think I already told you about that.”

“Ever have problems with anyone there? Any suspicions about anything?”

“No, not that I can remember.”

Vail took out the nine photographs of the CIA employees that Kalix had given him and handed them to her. “Do you know any of these people?”

Kate went through them slowly, carefully studying their features, knowing that work ID photos, due to the regimented posing and general lack of quality, can be more difficult to identify. When she finished, she shuffled back and picked out one. “He’s the only one I know. Myles Rellick. He was one of my contacts there.”

“Anything about him that didn’t sit right with you?”

“Not really. Do you think he’s involved in this?”

Vail explained about finding the CIA safe phone number, Calculus’s three Bryn Mawr Park visits, and how Kalix had narrowed the times down to the nine men in the photos. “You must have seen something, or at least they think you did.”

“I don’t know, the guy was beige wallpaper. Nothing sticks out about him.”

“You don’t need to dwell on it. Just let it roll around in the back of your head for a while. Maybe something will surface.”

“Where are we heading?”

“Thanks to Luke, we have a safe place to stay.”

“Didn’t Bonnie and Clyde say that once?” Kate said.

Bursaw said, “My sister is a history professor at Georgetown, and right now she’s on a sabbatical, in Portugal. That’s her area of expertise. She has an apartment near the school. There’s a car. I’m kind of in charge of maintaining both. She won’t be back until May for a summer course she’s teaching. It’s just a one-bedroom, but it’s well stocked with food. And she’s about your size if you need clothes.”

“What about all the files and information we have at the off-site?” she asked Vail. “Won’t we need that?”

“It’s all in the trunk. And we took photos of everything on the walls. I don’t know if they’re going to go public looking for you—and me, I suppose, since it won’t take long to figure out who helped you. But I don’t think they can announce to the world that you escaped, seeing as how they refuse to acknowledge that you’d been arrested. Lasker’s got Langston out of town for a couple of days, leaving Kalix in charge of counterintelligence operations, so the Bureau won’t be burning a lot of manpower hunting for us. And Luke should be cool for a while, because if they do try to identify Unknown Black Agent Number One, they’ll start at headquarters. No one knows about us being friends. We should have a couple of days before there’s any type of full-court press.”

Bursaw turned off Rock Creek Parkway onto Pennsylvania Avenue and then turned up Twenty-eighth Street. Three blocks later he pulled up to a small apartment building. “This is it,” he said, getting out and opening the trunk.

Inside his sister’s residence, Bursaw put the box containing the files on a desk in the living room and handed Vail the keys. “You’re now officially in charge of them.” He pointed at a large fish tank with a couple dozen disinterested tropical fish swimming around. “The car is a powder blue VW Bug. It’s parked in the garage. The key card to get in and out is over the visor.”

“Are you going somewhere?” Vail asked.

“I’ve got to go home, change, and go to the office. I hope you’re right and they won’t be looking for me. As soon as I put in an appearance and see if there’s any general alarm for you two, I’ll be back to give you a hand.”

“Thanks, Luke,” Kate said, and kissed him on the cheek.

Vail walked him out. “Is there an access code for your sister’s answering machine?”

“Good idea. We can leave each other messages on it if you go out. It’s 777.”

“I’ll call Kalix and let him know what Kate said about the photos. It looks like Myles Rellick is our best bet, but I have no idea where to start. We can’t do surveillance, or a wiretap, or even search his financial background. This fugitive stuff isn’t as easy as it looks.”

“I’m sure you’ll figure something out. Especially since it’s for Kate, her being such a good
friend
and all.”

“I told you, it’s complicated.”

“The best things always are.”

When Vail came back in, he found Kate looking through the bedroom closet. “Sorry we didn’t have time to get some of your clothes.”

“I’d rather wear three-day-old clothes than a nice crisp prison uniform.”

“Anything there?”

“I’ll find something,” she said. “I’m sorry I got emotional in the car.”

“Any CIA epiphanies yet?”

“Not yet, but I’m too tired to summon up any real memory. I’m going to take a shower and get some sleep. You could probably use a couple of hours yourself. You look beat.”

He smiled at her mischievously. “I could use a shower, too. This place looks like it would have a limited supply of hot water.”

“That’s good,” she said in a playful tone, “because it sounds like you could use a cold shower.”

After a couple of seconds, Vail said, “Kate, I’m sorry. This is all my fault. The whole thing was a setup, and you’re paying the price. I was so smug figuring out those puzzles. ‘Ariadne’s thread.’ I should have picked up on something.”

“Like what? Everything was falling into place.”

“Like their killing the moles, and just as we got to them. They knew just when to kill them—because they were sending us to them. That should have registered with me.”

Gently she took his hand in hers. “I should be terrified right now, but— No, that’s not right. I am terrified. But with you here I know this is going to end well. So
please,
don’t stop being you.”

“Probably the smartest thing you could do right now is be worried.”

“Well, bricklayer, I’m so worried that I’m going to sleep. You probably should, too.”

Vail picked up one of the pillows from the bed. “Maybe you’re right. I’ll stretch out on the couch and see if I can’t nod off as soon as I call John.”

A few hours later, Kate walked into the living room, her face still full of sleep. “Tell me it’s New Year’s morning and I just had a bad dream.”

Vail sat up on the couch. “I don’t suppose you dreamed about who would do this to you.”

“Nothing. As far as the CIA people at Langley, I was kind of a ghost. Float in, do a little paperwork, say hello to a few people, and float out.”

“You’ve got the Russians on you. You’re a threat to somebody. I know you supervised security work in Detroit, but that was the Middle East, right?”

“Right.”

“When was the last time you worked the Russians?”

“Never. When I rotated out of Detroit, I went to OPR for a year, and then I was a unit chief in the Counterintelligence Division, but it was an administrative position, the liaison with the CIA. I had a desk at Langley, but it wasn’t like I was there sixty hours a week.”

“Where else were you assigned?”

“After my CIA stint, which was about a year and a half, I got tapped to go to New York as an ASAC. But just before I was to leave, the director called me in and told me he wanted me to be the deputy AD in the general criminal division. So I haven’t been in counterintelligence for almost two years. And then it had nothing to do with the Russians.”

Vail was silent, staring back at her without seeing her. He was quiet longer than usual. “Did you handle any assets when you were there?”

“No, I haven’t seen an informant since I was a street agent,” she said.

Vail just shook his head.

There was a knock at the door, and then they heard a key in the lock. Bursaw walked in, carrying a large pizza box.

“How’s the manhunt going?” Vail asked.

“Not a word about it at WFO and nothing on the news. I went by the off-site, and there are a couple of guys sitting on it. They look like marshals.”

Vail said to Kate, “Then they’re on your apartment, too.”

Bursaw opened the box and pulled off a piece of pizza. “So what’s the plan?”

Vail pulled off a slice and handed it with a napkin to Kate. “I wish I knew.”

A few minutes later, there was another knock at the door, which caused everyone to stop talking. Vail peered out the peephole. It was John Kalix. He came in carrying an oversize briefcase. “I think I found something,” he said.

Kate stood up and hugged him. “Thanks for everything, John, except for maybe keeping the big galoot here alive.”

“I’m kind of new at all this, but I’ll bear that in mind next time.”

“What’s going on at headquarters?” Vail asked.

“I wish you could have seen that AUSA when he came storming into my office. He was making all kinds of threats until I asked him, with as incredulous a tone as possible, why his boss would accept a lawyer’s identity over the telephone. He said the entire hoax was perpetrated by FBI agents in the FBI building and that he was going to get to the bottom of it. Needless to say, he didn’t ask for any Bureau manpower to hunt down the wily Katherine Bannon. My sources tell me he has two two-man teams of marshals looking for you, and that’s all.”

“As long as Luke isn’t identified as part of this, we should be safe here,” Vail said. “You said you found something.”

Kalix took a portable DVD player out of his case. “While I was sitting around trying to look nonchalant after you and Kate disappeared, I got an idea. I started thinking about the spy dust that’s part of the evidence against Kate. Since we know she’s innocent, it means that the Russians must have collected it when we used it on that SVR intelligence officer, Nikolai Gulin. And maybe it isn’t a coincidence that he’s also the one in the photo with Kate. So I ran him through everything we have. Remember I told you that he was very elusive, but that we did have photos and videos of him taken during surveillances a couple of years ago? When I reviewed everything, I found this. It was taken at the Fredricksburg Antique Mall, which is far away enough from Washington that it was a good spot for a meeting or a drop. Anyone ever been there?”

Kate said, “I was there once . . . I don’t know . . . a couple of years ago, visiting a girlfriend of mine who had just moved to Fredricksburg from Colorado. It’s kind of a fun place. They had some interesting stuff.”

“Then you know people don’t go there without some interest in antiques, even if it’s casual. According to the surveillance log, Gulin never went into one shop or even looked in a window. It is, however, a place where it’s not easy to follow someone, which is probably why he chose it. As I said before, we had information that he was working an FBI agent. In this video it looks like he could be meeting with someone, but we couldn’t be sure because we lost him within minutes of this being shot. There was never any real effort to identify the second individual.”

“Why not?” Kate asked.

“This doesn’t leave the room.” He looked at each of them to make sure they understood. “Langston reviewed the matter, watched the video, and made the decision, almost arbitrarily, that the second individual had nothing to do with Gulin.” Kalix set the player down in front of Kate and pushed the Play button.

Everyone crowded in behind her and watched. The secreted camera bounced as it followed the Russian. Finally the target stopped and turned around. Kalix hit Pause. “That’s Gulin,” he said. “Ever seen him before, Kate?”

She studied the image for a moment. “Not that I remember.”

“Now watch when he stops in front of that bench.” Kalix hit Play once more. Gulin’s back was again to the camera, and a man walked up next to him, his back also to the camera. Then the man turned around, and they could see his profile. Kalix reached over Kate’s shoulder and hit Pause. “What do you think, Kate? Do you recognize him?”

She leaned forward. “It does look like Rellick. Maybe if I saw him move around a little more.”

Kalix hit Play again. The individual turned his back to the camera and appeared to be discreetly talking to Gulin. Then he casually looked to his right and abruptly turned to his left. He lowered his head and said something brief. For an instant the camera jerkily panned over to the right, trying to film whatever it was that had caught his attention. “I think it is him,” she said. Both men on the screen then separated and walked off in different directions.

Kalix hit the Stop button. “I spent an hour looking at his photo and then the at video. It’s hard to tell if you don’t know the person, but it looked like a match to me.”

Kate replayed the video a couple more times. “I’m almost positive that’s him,” she said. “Does this mean I’ll be cleared?”

“It would be better if we could be positive it’s him. What do you think, Steve?”