Any Means Necessary: A Luke Stone Thriller (Book 1) (6 page)

*

“You’re going to fire me because I won’t break the law for you?”

“Trudy, I’m not going to fire you. Why would you even think that?”

“It’s what you said, Luke.”

They were standing in a tiny utility room. There were two empty desks in here and one small window. The carpeting was new. The walls were white with nothing on them. There was a small video camera mounted in one corner, near the ceiling.

It looked like the room had never been used. The command center itself had been open for less than a year.

Trudy’s big eyes stared at him intently.

Luke sighed. “I was giving you an out. I thought you would understand that. If trouble comes down, you can blame it on me. All you did was what I told you to do. You were afraid you’d lose your job if you didn’t follow my orders.”

She took a step closer to him. In the confines of the room, he could smell her shampoo, and the understated cologne she often wore. The combination of scents did something to his knees. He felt them tremble the slightest amount.

“You can’t even give me a direct order, Luke. You don’t work at SRT anymore.”

“I’m on a leave of absence.”

She took another small step toward him. Her eyes were focused on him like twin lasers. There was intelligence in those eyes, and heat.

“And you left… why? Because of me?”

He shook his head. “No. I had my reasons. You weren’t one of them.”

“The Marshall brothers?”

He shrugged. “When you kill two men in one night, it’s a good time to take a pause. Maybe reassess what you’re doing.”

“Are you saying you never had any feelings for me?” she asked.

He looked at her, stunned by the question. He had always sensed Trudy flirting with him, and he had never taken the bait. There had been a few times, drunk at cocktail parties, after bad fights with his wife, when he had come close. But thoughts of his wife and son had always pulled him back from the brink of doing something stupid.

“Trudy, we work together,” he said firmly. “And I’m married.”

She came even closer.

“I’m not looking for a marriage, Luke,” she said softly, leaning in, inches away.

She pushed herself against him now. His arms were at his sides. He felt the heat from her, and that old uncontrollable urge when she was near, the excitement, the energy… the lust. She reached up to lay her hands on his chest, and as soon as her palms touched his shirt, he knew he had to act now or give in to her completely.

With one final act of supreme self-discipline, Luke stepped back and gently pushed her hands away.

“I’m sorry, Trudy,” he said, his voice raspy. “I care about you. I really do. But this is not a good idea.”

She frowned, but before she could say anything, a heavy fist banged against the wooden door.

“Luke? You in there?” It was Newsam’s voice. “You should come out and look at this. Swann’s got something.”

They stared at each other, Luke feeling guilty as hell as he thought of his wife, even though he hadn’t done anything. He peeled himself away before anything more could happen and couldn’t help wondering how this would affect their working together.

He also, worst of all, couldn’t help but admit, deep down, that he didn’t want to leave the room.

*

Swann sat a long table with his three video monitors arrayed in front of him. With his thinning hair and glasses, he reminded Luke of a NASA physicist at mission control. Luke stood behind him with Newsam and Trudy, the three of them hovering over Swann’s narrow shoulders.

“This one is Ken Bryant’s checking account,” Swann said, moving his cursor around on the center screen. Luke absorbed the details: deposits, withdrawals, total balance, a date range from April 28th to May 27th.

“How secure is this connection?” Luke said. He glanced around the room and out the door. The main room of the command center was just down the hall.

“This?” Swann said. He shrugged. “It’s independent of the command center. I’m connected to our own tower and our own satellites. It’s encrypted by our guys. I suppose CIA or NSA could have somebody trying to break it, but why bother? We’re all on the same team, right? I wouldn’t worry about that. Instead, I would focus on this bank account. Notice anything funny?”

“His balance is over $24,000,” Luke said.

“Right,” Swann said. “A janitor has a pretty sizeable chunk of money in his checking account. Interesting. Now let’s go back a month. March 28
th
to April 27
th
. The balance goes as high as $37,000, and he starts spending it down. There are transfers here from an unnamed account, $5,000, then $4,000, then, oh well, forget the whole IRS reporting problem… give me $20,000.”

“Okay,” Luke said.

“Go back another month. Late February to late March. His beginning balance is $1,129. By the end of the month, it’s over $9,000. Go back another month, late January to late February, and his balance never reached $2,000 the whole time. From there, if you go back three years, you see that his balance rarely went above $1,500. Here was a guy living month to month, who suddenly started getting large wire transfers in March.”

“Where are they coming from?”

Swann smiled and raised a finger. “Now for the fun part. They’re coming from a small offshore bank specializing in anonymous numbered accounts. It’s called Royal Heritage Bank, and it’s based on Grand Cayman.”

“Can you hack it?” Luke said. He glanced sidelong at Trudy’s disapproving look.

“I don’t have to,” Swann said. “Royal Heritage is owned by a CIA asset named Grigor Svetlana. He’s a Ukrainian who used to be in the Red Army. He got himself in deep with the Russians twenty years ago, after some old Soviet weaponry disappeared and then turned up on the black markets in West Africa. I’m not talking about guns. I’m talking about anti-aircraft, anti-tank, plus some low-altitude cruise missiles. The Russians were ready to hang him upside down. With nowhere to turn, he turned to us. I have a friend at Langley, and the accounts at Royal Heritage Bank, far from being anonymous, are in fact an open book to the American intelligence community. Of course, this isn’t something most Royal Heritage customers are aware of.”

“So you know who owned the account making the transfers.”

“I do.”

“Okay, Swann,” Luke said. “I understand. You’re very clever. Now get to the point.”

Swann gestured at the computer screens. “Bryant himself owned the account that was making the transfers. That’s the account on my left monitor there. You can see it has about $209,000 in it right now. He was transferring a little bit here and there from the numbered account to his local checking account, probably for his own personal use. And if we scroll back a few months, you can see that Bryant’s offshore account was created on March 3
rd
by a $250,000 transfer from another Royal Heritage account, the one on the right monitor here.”

Luke looked at the account on the right. There was more than forty-four million dollars in it.

“Someone got a bargain hiring Bryant,” he said.

“Exactly,” Swann said.

“Who is it?”

“It’s this man.” On the screen, a photo identification card appeared. It showed a middle-aged man with dark hair fading to white. “This is Ali Nassar. Fifty-seven years old. Iranian national. Born in Tehran to an influential and wealthy family. Studied at the London School of Economics, then Harvard Law School. Went home and got another law degree, this one from the University of Tehran. As a result, he can practice law in both the United States and Iran. He’s been involved in international trade negotiations for much of his career. He lives here in New York and is currently an Iranian diplomat to the United Nations. He has full diplomatic immunity.”

Luke stroked his chin. He could feel the short stubble growing there. He was starting to get tired. “Let me get this straight. Nassar paid Ken Bryant, presumably for access to the hospital, as well as information about security measures and how to circumvent them.”

“Presumably, yes.”

“So he’s likely running a terrorist cell here in New York, he’s an accessory to the theft of hazardous materials and at least four murders, and he can’t be prosecuted under American law?”

“It certainly appears that way.”

“Okay. You’re in the account already, right? Let’s see where else he’s been sending money.”

“It’ll take me a little while.”

“That’s fine. I have an errand to run in the meantime.”

Luke glanced at Ed Newsam. Newsam’s face was hard, his eyes flat and blank.

“Say, Ed? You feel like taking a ride with me? Maybe we should go pay Mr. Ali Nassar a visit.”

Newsam smiled, looking more like a scowl.

“Sounds like fun.”

6:20 a.m.

Congressional Wellness Center - Washington, DC

It was not easy to find.

Jeremy Spencer stood in front of a set of locked gray steel doors in a sub-basement of the Rayburn House Office Building. The doors were tucked away in a corner of the underground parking lot. Few people knew this place existed. Even fewer knew where it was. He felt foolish, but he knocked on the door anyway.

Someone buzzed him in. He pulled back the door, feeling that old familiar sense of uncertainty in his stomach. He knew that the Congressional Gym was off-limits to everyone but the members of the United States Congress. And yet, despite the breach of long-standing protocol, he had been invited inside.

Today was the biggest day of his young life. He had been in Washington for three years, and he was moving up.

Seven years ago, he was an upstate New York trailer park redneck. Then he was a student on a full scholarship at the State University of New York at Binghamton. Rather than kick back and enjoy the free ride, he became president of the campus Republicans and a commentator on the school newspaper. Soon he was posting on Breitbart and Drudge. Now, what seemed like a deep breath later, he was a beat reporter for Newsmax, covering the Capitol.

The gym was not fancy. There were a few cardio trainers, some mirrors, and some free weights on a rack. An old man in sweat pants and a T-shirt, with headphones on, walked on a treadmill. Jeremy entered the quiet locker room. He turned a corner, and in front of him was the man he had come to see.

The man was tall, mid-fifties, with silver hair. He stood at an open locker, so Jeremy saw him in profile. His back was straight, and his large jaw jutted forward. He wore a T-shirt and shorts, both soaked from a work-out. His shoulders, arms, chest, and legs, everything was muscular and defined. He looked like a leader of men.

The man was William Ryan, nine-term Representative from North Carolina, and Speaker of the House. Jeremy knew everything about him. His family was old money. They had owned tobacco plantations since before the Revolution. His great-great grandfather was a United States Senator during Reconstruction. He had graduated first in his class at the Citadel. He was charming, he was gracious, and he wielded power with a sense of confidence and entitlement so complete that few people in his party considered opposing him.

“Mr. Speaker, sir?”

Ryan turned, saw Jeremy there, and flashed a bright smile. His T-shirt was dark blue, with red and white letters. PROUD AMERICAN was all it said. He held out his hand for a shake. “Sorry,” he said. “Still a little sweaty.”

“No problem, sir.”

“Okay,” Ryan said. “Enough with the sirs. In private, you call me Bill. If that feels too hard, call me by my title. But I want you to know something. I requested you, and I’m giving you an exclusive. Late this afternoon, I may end up giving a press conference with all the media. I don’t know yet. But until then, all day long, my thoughts on this crisis are going to be under your byline. How does that feel?”

“It feels great,” Jeremy said. “It’s an honor. But why me?”

Ryan lowered his voice. “You’re a good kid. I’ve been following you for a long while. And I want to give you a piece of advice. Totally off the record. After today, you’re no longer an attack dog. You’re a seasoned journalist. I want you to print what I’m about to say word for word, but starting tomorrow, I want you to become slightly more… nuanced, let’s say. Newsmax is great for what it is, but a year from now I see you at the
Washington Post
. That’s where we need you, and it will happen. But first, people need to believe you’ve matured and grown into a so-called fair and balanced, mainstream reporter. Whether you have or not isn’t important. It’s all about perceptions. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“I think I do,” Jeremy said. His blood roared in his ears. The words were exciting and terrifying all at once.

“We all need friends in high places,” the Speaker said. “Including me. Now fire away.”

Jeremy took out his telephone. “Recorder is on… now. Sir, are you aware of the massive theft of radioactive material that took place in New York City overnight?”

“I am more than aware,” Ryan said. “Like all Americans, I am deeply concerned. My aides woke me at four a.m. with the news. We are in close contact with the intelligence community, and we are monitoring the situation closely. As you well know, I have been working to pass a Congressional Declaration of War against Iran, which the President and his party have been blocking at every turn. We are in a situation where Iran is occupying our ally, the sovereign nation of Iraq, and our own personnel have to pass through Iranian checkpoints to enter and leave our embassy there. I don’t believe there has been a series of events so humiliating since the Iran hostage crisis in 1979.”

“Do you believe this theft was carried out by Iran, sir?”

“First off, let’s call it what it is. Whether or not a bomb goes off on a subway train, this is a terrorist attack on American soil. At least two security guards were murdered, and the great city of New York is in a state of fear. Second, we don’t have enough information yet to pinpoint who the terrorists are. But we know that weakness on the world stage encourages these sorts of attacks. We need to show our true strength, and we need to come together as a country, both right and left, to defend ourselves. I invite the President to join with us.”