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Authors: Andrew Britton

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BOOK: The Operative
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Andrews sighed and Harper knew why. A lot of people could die in that time period. But the team leaders also had to make sure that they had a single protocol for shoot-to-kill, surrender, explosive vests, wounded civilians, and anything else they might encounter.
Brenneman thanked Ferrara politely, though Harper knew him well enough to know that the president would have liked to hear that units were inside the convention center already and collecting data and video.
“Is there any surveillance footage?” Harper asked Ferrara.
“We’ve got a streaming video from emergency vehicles, and we’re just starting to look at data from the convention center’s computers,” Ferrara said. “They have twenty-four discrete cameras, and we’re running the footage backward.”
That made sense. It would bring up the actionable images first and would leave the forensic images for later.
“Show us what we’re dealing with,” the president said. “Start with the ballroom and food area.”
It was the logical choice, the place where a large percentage of high-value targets from D.C. had been gathered. It was also the place where a great deal of yellow had showed up on the thermal imaging.
“Yes, sir,” Ferrara said and sent over CC-B and C. Each file had images from four separate cameras.
The president glanced at Harper. “Jon, you don’t need to do this.”
“It’s okay, sir,” he said. “I may see something.”
Harper reached for a glass of water as he opened the files on his laptop, his eyes fixed on the carnage.
The video images were arrayed in two rows of four. Clicking on any panel would give the viewer a full-screen view of that particular video.
Seven of the videos were virtually static. Even the particulate matter hanging in the air barely moved. Because the cameras were all at an angle, they were looking through more of it than if they were at ground level and facing straight ahead.
Everyone seemed to react as something moved.
“Camera eight,” Dryfoos said. “Did you all see that?”
Most of the others had already clicked and maximized the image. Harper set the water glass aside and leaned closer to the screen.
There were two people, a male and a female. There were occasional glints of light from the floor, like luminous algae in moving water.
“There’s glass from the barricade beside them,” Andrews said. “Three separate blast patterns.”
“They were shot out, not blown out,” Mathis added needlessly.
It was the first comment from the head of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Bureau. The psychiatrist was a college friend of the Speaker of the House, an archrival of Brenneman’s. Mathis’s reliance on “cloud profiling”—identifying potential terrorists based on geographical and socioeconomic data rather than on actual affiliations—had taxed his allotment of FBI resources without providing any tangible results. While dismissing him would be easy, getting a replacement through the House would be impossible.
“Who is in charge of this footage?” Andrews asked.
“An outfit called Steel Guard Solutions provides building and event security to the center,” Ferrara said. “A couple of rental cops reported a CIA presence in the Pratt Street lobby. These two fit the report.”
“When was that?” Harper asked, squinting at the image. He was ignoring the backward motion, concentrating on the faces.
“About fifteen minutes ago—”
“It can’t be,” Harper said suddenly.
“What, Jon?” the president asked.
Harper froze the image, clicked on the drop-down menu, kicked the size up to 150 percent, and hit the auto-enhance button. Most of the smoke seemed to vanish as the contrast in the figures was pumped up.
He glanced at the time stamp. “Frame 5:28:02,” he said. “Go fifty percent up and enhance.”
Everyone did as he’d instructed. Dumbstruck, Harper sat hunched in front of the screen, just staring. There was no mistaking the identities of the two people on-screen. The man with the coal-black shock of hair, the tall blond woman with him. Harper knew them as well as anybody in the entire world.
“Good get, Jon,” Andrews said.
“Thanks.”
Neither Ferrara nor Mathis had any idea what they were talking about, but neither man would have admitted his ignorance. Fortunately, Secretary of State Dryfoos asked the question for them.
“Who are we looking at?”
“Incredibly,” Harper said, “that’s former Company man Ryan Kealey with CIA psychotherapist Allison Dearborn.”
Harper clicked back to the backward feed. There were gun flashes from the couple’s position.
“Yeah,” Andrews said, sitting back. “That’s definitely Ryan Kealey.”
CHAPTER 7
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
C
rouched beside Allison Dearborn in the walkway, Kealey read her nephew’s latest update off her phone:
Split into 2 grps. Conf. rms 224–256. Am in 224. 3 guards in rm w/us. Dn’t know h/many in hall.
“Maybe we should phone for help,” Allison suggested.
“I’d love to, but we don’t know who’s in on this or where the cavalry is,” he said. “I’m sure there are also jurisdictional turf wars that have to be settled before any boots hit the ground.”
Gunfire echoed through the main exhibition hall, a single burst of unusual duration. The sounds prickled the fine hairs at the back of Kealey’s neck; Allison breathed through clenched teeth. There had been no return volleys. They were listening to a bloodbath being carried out.
“Why are they doing this?” she asked. “They have to know the police are coming.”
“They may be counting on that,” Kealey said.
“Murder-suicide?”
“Worse.” He rose, bending low, the 9-millimeter held straight in front of him. “A dozen or more blue funerals buy a lot of airtime. Exposure advances terror.”
Allison seemed to want to say something. She couldn’t find the words, but the horror was there, in her eyes. Kealey didn’t bother to remind her that an hour ago she had said craziness kept her in business. What she meant, of course, was the benign kinds of disorders that comprised the bulk of her practice and affected only the individual: PTSD, depression, schizophrenia. The rational evil they were facing here was a very different kind of animal. It did not believe it was sick.
“Let’s go,” he said, starting forward at a brisk walk.
“What’s your plan?” she asked.
“We need to take out the guards,” he said.
“That isn’t a plan.”
“It’s all I’ve got right now,” he said without apology.
They remained crouched, out of sight, moving forward until they were about 50 feet from the convention center’s main exhibition hall, just outside the entrance to the mezzanine level.
“We could use a layout of this place,” Kealey said. “See if you can pull one off its Web site.”
She nodded and tapped the screen with her thumbs. Waiting, watching for anyone who might emerge—an escaped hostage was his main concern—Ryan heard screams below him and then the rattle of an automatic weapon. It was the third peal of gunfire since he’d taken out the two masked gunmen.
Any one of them could have involved Colin.
“Okay,” Allison said now. Her voice was cracked, her hand trembling as she passed him the phone. Kealey took a moment to hold her hand as he took the phone. She hadn’t lived through Bosnia and other hotbeds of genocide. If he couldn’t block out the violence, how could she be expected to handle it?
Kealey studied the display. There were separate diagrams for each level of the building, all viewable as PDF files and nearly as detailed as architectural blueprints. A glance at the third floor immediately showed where to find the food area and the block of conference rooms. Better yet, it gave the individual locations and door numbers.
“The room where they brought Colin is on the southeast side of the building,” he said and touched a finger to the display. “Right across from that church we passed. What was the name of it?”
“Old Otterbein,” Allison said.
For her own sake, he needed to keep her involved in this. He held the floor plan out to her now, pointing at the long block of conference rooms on the floor above them.
“Looks like there’s a public space, then a hall running off it to the conference rooms,” he said. “It’s going to be guarded. The hostages, too, as Colin said.”
“How do we get by them?”
“There are elevators running up there, but we have no way of knowing if they’re working. That leaves the escalators and stairs about midway down the length of the mezzanine.”
He pointed them out, and she nodded.
“We’re going to need a distraction,” Kealey said. “Something to draw their attention from us.”
“I can—”
“Inside,” Kealey said. “We need to draw the guards
in.
”
She looked up at him. “No,” she said as she realized what he was saying. “I won’t ask my nephew to risk his life.”
“It’s already at risk. The hostages are going to be killed if nothing’s done.”
“Maybe not. They haven’t, yet—”
“It’s a tactic,” Kealey said. “I’ve been timing the shots. They’re killing people every three minutes. If I’m keeping track, the police are, too. The killers are trying to rush the rescue effort, give the police less time to get organized.”
“Ryan, who ...
what
kind of creature thinks like that?” She realized what she had said a moment later. “I’m sorry, Ryan. I didn’t mean that you—”
“Not important,” he said. “Twitter updates. Can any account holder read them?”
“Unless I block somebody, they’re public.”
“Is there a quick way to track updates on a particular subject?”
Allison nodded. “There are hashtags—number signs before a word that categorize the tweet.”
“So if you tag the words ‘Baltimore Convention Center,’ then somebody looking for updates about it would see them?”
She nodded again.
Kealey paused thoughtfully. “I want you to send Colin a post. Tag it the way you described.”
“But if someone hears—”
“I want them to,” Kealey said. “Trust me, Allison.”
They heard another spurt of gunfire down below. It dramatically underscored the need for haste.
“Okay,” she said. “What’s the message?”
After reviewing it in his mind—and aware of the trigger he was about to pull—he gave it to her.
 
Colin Dearborn was sitting against a wall, in a corner, surrounded by sobbing, dust-covered, terrified fellow hostages. The air was thick, and the mood was even heavier.
They had all heard the shots and the screams. They knew those weren’t SWAT teams giving or receiving.
Colin’s cell phone was on vibrate, hidden down the front of his boxers. When he felt the rhythmic buzz of a push notification, he knew there was only a small chance that it was something important. More than likely, it was one of his friends checking to see if he was all right.
But it could also be his aunt Allison with important information.
He passed his eyes around the room. The guard who’d entered with his group had turned almost entirely toward the open door to converse with another masked lunatic in the hallway. If he was quick, Colin believed he could reach for the phone without being seen. He’d done it once already, albeit when they were still standing.
There were walls behind him and to his right. To the left, no one was paying him any attention. The young man quickly unbuttoned his waistband and slipped his hand into his trousers.
Grabbing the cell, he worked it awkwardly from his undershorts and tucked it between his bent legs. He huddled down, as though he were resting his head on his knees. That would also help to conceal the glow of the screen. Then he focused his eyes on the display and scrolled down his timeline with his thumb. At the top of his feed, he read the words:
Leave yr phone somewhere w/vol LOUD. In 5 min. it will ring, DO NOT answer. #BaltimoreConventionCenter // Stand by.
Colin felt his stomach drop. He clutched the phone for several seconds more, rereading the message.
Pressure,
he thought.
There was no way of knowing what their captors would do if they heard the cell.
Shoot into the group of twenty-odd souls? Take him out and execute him as an example to the others?
She wouldn’t have sent that message without good reason, he reflected. And it wasn’t a stretch to conclude that it had something— no,
everything
—to do with Ryan Kealey. It was no secret on the university campus that the visiting prof was former CIA, and even that didn’t begin to define what set him apart from the other academicians there. Colin had read news articles about his role in preventing a terrorist incident near the United Nations a few years back. From the day they met, Colin had gotten the sense he had seen things most people hadn’t, and was capable of doing things most others weren’t.
But there was always a price for action.
Colin exhaled until his lungs felt entirely deflated. He estimated a full minute had passed since her tweet. Four minutes left to figure this out. Allie had hashtagged the words
Baltimore Convention Center.
That told Colin she—or rather, Kealey—believed the tweets were being monitored. Obviously, Kealey had given this some thought. He had a plan. He knew what he was doing.
Or so Colin needed to believe, if he was going to disobey the commands of his seriously unbalanced keepers.
He looked around him. The spare décor didn’t afford many places of concealment, even for a small object, but he thought he saw one that might do the trick.
Making certain the guard was still turned toward the door, Colin made his move.
BOOK: The Operative
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