The Backup Asset (14 page)

Alex pulled in the visitor parking lot and looked at the familiar building. This was where it had all started, just a couple of years before. She remembered her job interview with Tom Isaac, The Agency’s owner; she remembered how scared, self-conscious, and insecure she felt at first, and how exhilarated she was when she had accepted the unusual job offer, without worrying about any of the risks.

She had always considered herself very lucky to land her dream job. Although, in retrospect, knowing what she knew of how The Agency operated, she wasn’t that sure it was luck that made it happen. Tom had fielded her direct questions by saying she had been selected, but never offered a word more.

She was grateful for his confidence, for the opportunity to work with a fantastic team of smart, powerful, and knowledgeable business people. She had a lot to learn from them and she enjoyed it. She was happy she didn’t have to deal with boredom at work; after all, she had to infiltrate a new organization every few months or so, and start a brand new investigation.

Alex was a little worried on that particular day, considering Tom had summoned her to the office. They typically met at his home, where Alex had become a part of the family, welcome any time without announcing herself ahead. Her conscience was bothering her a little too, because she had been unable to focus lately. Tom might have sensed that. Who was she kidding . . . for sure he had sensed that, otherwise he’d make a very poor observer of people’s behavior, and that was impossible, considering his company’s line of work and record of success.

She braced herself for the meeting, and a wave of sadness came upon her as she walked through the doors. She hated disappointing Tom, or any other member of the team, yet that had been the norm in the past few weeks.

She reached Tom’s office and tapped quietly on the door.

“Alex, come in,” Tom said, getting up from his massive leather chair to greet her. “It’s good to see you! You’ve been a stranger lately!”

“Good to see you too, Tom, and yes, I have. And I’ve missed you, all of you,” she said, averting her eyes.

She turned her back and poured herself a cup of coffee from Tom’s machine, then sat down, sipping it slowly, and inhaling the French Vanilla aroma. All good reasons to avert her eyes some more.

“So, why the absence? What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing much, really, just tired, I guess,” she replied, continuing to avoid his scrutinizing glance.

At sixty-three, Tom Isaac was the father figure in her life: friend, mentor, boss, and a shoulder to cry on when she needed one. He was an amazing man. Very bright and profound, extremely perceptive with people and a keen investigator, yet someone so independent and so motivated by his own beliefs that he had chosen to start a private investigations firm that exclusively handled corporate clients, a unique and challenging business. It was very hard to lie to him.

“You’re doing it again,” Tom said in a kind voice.

“What?” she asked.

“Remember your job interview? You’re giving me the bullshit dance, Alex.” He smiled encouragingly, then continued, “Is it this office? You’ve only done this twice since I’ve known you, and both times it happened here, in this office,” he clarified humorously. “It must be the office, I believe.”

Scratch that, Alex thought. No, it was impossible to lie to him.

“Busted,” she laughed sheepishly. “Yeah . . . I
was
giving you the bullshit dance. But I won’t anymore.”

“Wanna try again?”

“Yeah . . . It’s my last case, that’s all. Still keeps me up at night.”

“But we closed that case,” Tom argued. “Why is it still bothering you?”

“Everyone, including you,” she said, gesturing with her hand, a little irritation seeping in her voice, “says we closed the case successfully. But did we? We didn’t catch the leader; we don’t even know who he is, other than he’s Russian. All we have is a piece of very thin intel that his name might start with the letter V. We caught the rest of the terrorists, but this guy . . . This guy drives me crazy. He has to exist somewhere, leave a trace somewhere.”

Tom leaned forward in his chair, with a look of concern on his face.

“Alex, one of the most difficult things we have to face in our jobs is letting go. It’s not risking our lives, it’s not being held at gunpoint, it’s not even being arrested or shot. It’s exactly what you’re going through now, letting go.”

“Has it happened to you too?” she asked, looking him in the eye for the first time since she’d arrived in his office.

“More than once,” he admitted.

“How did you manage to let go?”

“I had to pull myself out of it, because I was screwing up my new client engagements, just like you are screwing up yours now. An unfocused mind can be deadly in our line of work, to you, to all of us.”

She blushed instantly, feeling her cheeks burn and tears coming to her eyes.

“I am sorry, so sorry, Tom, I hope you know that,” she whispered.

“I know you are, but this isn’t the point.” He paused a little, letting his words sink in. “This,” he continued, pointing at her, “is not the girl I hired. The girl I hired had gumption and drive. There was no stopping her and no messing with her. She always got the job done, effectively, courageously, and intelligently. She cared about her clients to the point of self-sacrifice. While you, you are spaced out half the time, mulling over an unsolvable problem.”

“If I only had a lead, I would instantly turn back into that girl,” Alex said timidly.

“And what if you don’t? What if you’ll never get that lead? Is this it? You’re gonna throw your career and life away for a Russian ghost, whose name potentially starts with V?”

She couldn’t bring herself to answer. He was right. Well, Tom was always right, that made him who he was.

“How did you let go? Tell me what I should do, please,” she pleaded.

“First of all,” he stated, counting on his fingers, “you have to decide to let go, with all your being, all your willpower. Until you do that, you won’t find peace in letting go. Mind over matter, remember?”

“Yes,” she whispered, her eyes fixated on the carpet’s gray and blue pattern.

“Then you act on your decision,” Tom continued, “you do the things you have to do to close that case for good.”

“Like what?”

“Burn your crazy wall. Get rid of that corkboard and everything that’s on it, and turn that spare bedroom into a movie screening room, or something. Turn it into something you like, something that makes you happy, and let some sunshine in.”

She looked at him with piercing eyes, while her faced transformed from the earlier embarrassment and sadness into sheer anger.

“You’ve never been in that room, Tom. How did you know about it?”

Tom cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable. “Steve . . . well, Steve talked to me about it.”

“He did, now, didn’t he?” Her voice was low, threatening.

“You have to understand, Alex, we all care about you and we want you to be healthy, get on with your life.”

“So that makes it all right to talk about me behind my back?” she snapped, standing up so abruptly that her chair tipped over. She didn’t even notice it, as she started pacing the room like a caged animal. “What, Mr. Shrink now thinks I lost it and has turned me into you? Is that how it works?”

“You should know me better than this,” Tom said in a hurt voice, “you should know
us
better than this.”

Maybe she should . . . She stopped her pacing and looked out the window, focusing intently on a distant palm tree, glimmering in the sunlight as if it were made of tinfoil.

She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. This was her boss she was yelling at, and she loved her job; she definitely wanted to keep it. She needed to act as such.

“Tom,” she said, turning toward him apologetically, “I am very sorry for my outburst. I–I felt betrayed, that’s all. Steve and I have a relationship, and I thought . . . well, I never thought he’d do this to me.”

“I understand,” he said, “but it just confirmed what I was saying. You’ve distanced yourself mentally to the point where you feel the need to protect yourself from us. You feel the need to hide what’s on your mind. What happened to that trust we had to work so hard to earn from you? Is it all gone?”

It had been a challenge for her to learn to trust The Agency’s team. Her teenage years and early adulthood had been riddled with hardship and heartbreak stemming from her parents’ spiraling descent into discontent with each other, verbal violence, and psychological abuse. She had left her parents behind as soon as she had turned eighteen, but she continued to remain wary, almost suspicious of people.

“I guess I’m falling back into old patters of behavior,” she admitted. “You have a point, Tom, and I’ll work hard on letting go, I promise. Thank you for continuing to believe in me.”

“I’ll never stop believing in you, Alex, that’s a promise. But you have to do your part and come back to us. Please try,” he said, standing up to see her out.

Her heart melted a little hearing his words. She welcomed his hug and inhaled the familiar scent of aftershave mixed with cigar smoke. She took in the feeling of safety and comfort for a second, then replied, “I will. It’s a promise.”

Only half of the ground level in Walcott’s multilevel parking structure was open to the employees and visitors. The rest was blocked off for the company-owned fleet, for their parking spots, in addition to light maintenance, car wash, and detailing. It had a built-in automated car-wash station and a fully equipped detailing station, staffed by the fleet manager and two helpers.

Walcott Global owned several vehicles. A few black SUVs waited, readily available for traveling executives in need of transportation. The limo was used for company events and to impress visiting clients and government officials. Finally, a black Mercedes Sprinter functioned as a shuttle, hauling personnel and delegates to and from airports, conferences, and events, and Naval Station Norfolk—one of Walcott’s employees’ most frequent destinations.

Walcott Global’s revenue had topped seven-billion dollars the prior year, most of it coming from the Navy. One of the top government contractors for engineering consulting services, Walcott was the US government’s top resource in weapons and communications research and deployment, focused almost entirely on mobile platforms. That made the US Navy and the US Air Force its biggest clients. With the growing tensions in the world and a rejuvenated interest in scaling up arsenals and new technologies, Walcott was buzzing with activity.

That activity buzz reverberated all the way to the ground floor of the parking structure, where the Sprinter had to be detailed quite often. Terry, the fleet manager, handled that task personally whenever he had the time; the Sprinter had to look impeccably clean and ready to transport official delegations without notice.

The Sprinter accommodated fifteen passengers, and its luxurious, custom leather seats were organized like those on a commuter jet: two adjoining on one side, with a single one on the opposite side, while the end row had four seats without any space in between.

Terry’s first job when detailing the Sprinter was to check for any forgotten or dropped items, before bringing in the vacuum cleaner. He moved swiftly from seat to seat, sliding his gloved hand between the seats and the side panels of the vehicle, normally taking less than five minutes to finish the search. It was routine.

That morning however, he never made it past the third row. A sheet of paper had fallen between the edge of the single seat on the third row and its corresponding side panel, only a small corner of it visible.

Terry grabbed the visible corner gently with his gloved hand, careful not to tear the paper. There was enough room between the seat and the panel; the paper came out easily, without any tearing. There was nothing written on it. Terry flipped it on its other side and froze.

It was the cover page of a technical documentation file, but that wasn’t the most disturbing thing about it. The fact that it was marked TOP SECRET wasn’t either.

The most disturbing fact was that the TOP SECRET mark was in black and white, a clear proof that the document was an unauthorized photocopy of a TOP SECRET document. All legitimate copies of classified documents had to bear a stamp in original ink, with the copy date and authorization code.

The header read, “Walcott Global.” The document was titled, “Evaluation Memorandum: Compatibility and Readiness Assessment for the Installation of Laser Cannon Technology Onboard Zumwalt Class Destroyers.”

They had a leak.

He has a passion for weather. He loved observing changing weather patterns, having his forecast down to each passing cloud and wind gust. The digital weather station on his wall was the first thing he checked in the morning of each day, religiously. The information displayed on it stated that it was going to be a nice day, with partly cloudy skies, barometric pressure was going to hold steady, and temperatures reasonable for the season.

Adrenaline had kept him awake for the best part of the night; excitement and anticipation for what that day was going to bring turned more and more intense as he approached the drop time. His first drop . . . his first step on a path from which there was no coming back. And yet, despite the adrenaline rushing blood through his veins, the moment he entered his office, his usual obsession with weather took over and he spent a good five minutes analyzing the data on the digital weather station.

He had time though, plenty of time to prepare. His plan was relatively simple, and he was already halfway through with it. First, he had gained access to the documents. To do that, he had waited patiently for the first day when legitimate business reasons called for him to access the highly restricted document storage area named CDR—Centralized Document Repository. Each employee had to have a project number associated with each visit, and the CDR’s staff entered that information in a computer, together with the files accessed or removed. Any discrepancy between retrieved files and active projects triggered an immediate alarm; doors would go on lockdown, and no one would be allowed to leave the CDR level until cleared by internal security. The place was airtight, with procedures and systems worthy of the secrecy of the content they protected.

That’s why he had to wait a while, but the day before he was able to access the CDR and remove the three files that interested him. He could only borrow them for a few hours, not more. The second step was to make copies of the files—unauthorized copies, of course. That, in itself, had proven to be a bit of a challenge, but he had had a few days to find a way to work around that challenge while waiting for CDR access.

The challenge was the copier. The building’s new copiers were modern pieces of equipment that needed his personal code before doing anything, and stored all copied material in their memory, time-stamped, where the Internal Security department could access anything at will during random checks. There was no way he could use one of those machines. But he had found another copy machine, a forgotten piece of junk from the 1980s, still in service in the basement mailroom. It still worked; albeit not perfectly, leaving a narrow vertical black line on each page and moving very slowly, but it didn’t need access codes to work, and it didn’t store any activity logs or images of copied documents.

Accessing the copier in the mailroom was another challenge; he started the copy job during the mailroom clerk’s lunch break and had to stay late the night before to finish the nerve-racking job on the slowest copier ever invented. Every paper rustle, every footstep on the hallway resonated in his mind louder than cannon fire, causing his heart to skip a beat and his blood to rush to his head. And that piece of junk took two minutes to copy each page . . . how did people ever get any work done with equipment like that? The job had taken so long to finish that he ran out of time to return the files to the CDR the same day; internal security procedures rendered it inaccessible after 7.00PM.

Then he had a panic attack . . . the adventures of the day had probably been the most that he could handle. He wasn’t experienced at this game . . . not yet, anyway. It was well after 7.00PM when he had finished; he was still in possession of the original files, and he just couldn’t bring himself to walk out with the copies in his briefcase. He was too scared, too jumpy, too exhausted.

The next step required him to get the copied documents outside the building and take them home, where he could take pictures and save them on a digital memory card. He had thought of bringing a camera inside the building, but every morning he had to walk through metal detectors to get in, while his briefcase was being X-rayed. No way could he pull that off. Personal phones were kept in lockers at the main entrance during the day, and the corporate phone’s camera was a bad idea for obvious reasons.

He had decided to put it off for a day, and that had been a good decision. He knew exactly what he had to do. He wanted to organize the copies before the day’s madness would start and he risked people interrupting him or barging unannounced in his office. He also needed to return the originals to the CDR. Then, at the end of the day he’d leave with the rest of the crowd at about 5.00PM or so, and walk right out of the building with the copied files hidden in the lining of his briefcase. Easy peasy.

He started organizing the copied documents in order, by file number, making sure every page was there. As he reached the bottom of the copied papers pile, he froze . . . He was missing one copied page, the cover page from one of the files.

His own heartbeat deafened him, pumping hard in his chest as he tried desperately to breathe, to control the onset of another panic attack. Where could he have left it? He was sure he had copied every single page.

He rushed downstairs to the mailroom; luckily, no one was there. He went straight for the copier and almost tore it apart looking for the missing page. Maybe it got stuck in the copier somewhere, like a paper jam? Nothing there, nothing on the small table he had used, or behind it, where it could have fallen.

He looked everywhere in his own office; opened every drawer, checked every piece of furniture, every file folder he had on his desk. Nada. Exhausted, his knees weak from excess adrenaline, he let himself drop in his chair.

He tried to retrace his steps on the day before, but couldn’t focus. He had been in and out of the office, but everything was a blur. The entire day he had been painfully aware of each surveillance camera in the building and had to jump through hoops to avoid them.

He remembered he had to go to Norfolk Harbor with the project team for a few hours after lunch, but he was positive he had left the documents carefully hidden under his area rug at the time. He couldn’t remember when he took them from there, or where else he went; his memory was failing under the wave of brainwashing adrenaline.

Maybe he simply hadn’t copied that page . . . errors can happen, he thought. He must have just skipped it by mistake. Steadying himself, he grabbed the original of the missing page and ventured to the mailroom again. The slower-than-molasses copier finished the one page copy job just as the mailroom clerk came in with the day’s mail delivery, giving him a start.

“Can I help you, sir?”

“Y–yes,” he said, holding the manila folder with the original and its copy as if he were about to hand it to the clerk, “can we ship something overnight to our New Zealand office? What’s the procedure?”

He hoped the clerk would not pick up on the strong smell of copier toner, activated by heat in the antiquated copy process, or notice how badly his hands were shaking.

“You need it interoffice, sir?”

“Yes,” he confirmed.

“You’d need an IE9D form filled, signed, stamped, and attached to the document package, together with your auth code.”

“All right, I’ll get that started.”

He left the mailroom briskly but couldn’t bring himself to breathe until he was alone in the elevator.

He had a few more hours until the drop . . . he was going to make it with plenty of time to spare.