The Operative (18 page)

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Authors: Andrew Britton

BOOK: The Operative
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Kealey shifted to the man’s left, repeated what he had said.
“I’m José Colon, a doctor.” He snickered mirthlessly. “Good thing those SOBs attacked a medical dinner.”
Allison shuffled to his left. “You need to get it treated.”
“I will,” Colon said. “People who are bleeding go first.”
Allison offered him a strained approximation of a smile, while Kealey looked at his patient. Her eyes were shut, her blouse was shredded, and her arms and chest were a patchwork of slashes and puncture wounds. The side of her head was matted with blood from a long gash that ran from behind her ear to the top of her head. Colon was treating that now with bottled water and dabbing it with a piece of Julie’s blouse. There was a bloody length of material tied tight below her knee; two long, ragged wooden boards bracketed the leg.
The last two fingers of the woman’s left hand were gone. Colon had tied off the wound with another piece of blouse. It was saturated with blood, but the stain did not appear to be increasing.
“Mild concussion?” Allison asked, kneeling at the top of Julie’s head.
“I think so,” Colon said. “Are you a doctor?”
“Psychiatrist,” she replied.
“I gave her a GCS before I started on the leg,” he said. “She’s at two.”
“The Glasgow Coma Scale registers neural activity,” Allison explained to Kealey as she watched the doctor clean the wound. Two means reacts to painful stimuli and makes sounds.”
“That’s good?” he asked.
“Better than a one,” she replied.
“I treated the hand and leg first because of the bleeding. She’s got a compound fracture, but her vitals seem stable.”
Allison reached around and carefully lifted Julie’s wrist, feeling for a pulse. After a moment she laid it down. “Strong, all things considered.” She said to Kealey, “Obviously, you can’t know about internal injuries.”
“But we do need to find out,” Colon said. “I just wanted to stabilize her before they take her away. Can’t do much for this without suturing.”
“Look, I can finish here,” Allison told him. “Please go and get yourself seen to.”
Colon leaned back on his heels and nodded. With a final glance at his handiwork, he rose silently, like a wraith.
“Thank you,” Allison said after him.
He did not appear to have heard.
“I’m going to have to stitch this up,” Allison said. “See what you can get from the medics.”
“Give me a minute,” Kealey said, climbing awkwardly to his feet. His muscles were cramped and tired. The rest of him wasn’t too hot, either.
Allison waited, cleaning the wound as best she could. She used the tips of her fingernails to pluck splinters of glass from Julie’s flesh; they appeared to be the remnants of a faceted crystal goblet from someone’s table. It took some doing to work them out; they’d hit with force that was sufficient to penetrate, but not pierce, her skull. Fresh blood pumped from the wound as she pulled them free. Allison applied gentle pressure to the cuts as best she could, laying a ribbon of blouse fabric across them and placing her thumb across it.
A minute or so later, Kealey returned with the pack she’d seen an FBI man remove from his vest. The large white print on its black outer fabric read FIELD TRAUMA.
“I need an antiseptic and a fresh dressing, Ryan,” she said in a quiet voice.
Kealey crouched beside her. He unzipped the case, reached in, and produced a dressing roll and a packet labeled CELOX.
“I don’t see any thread, just—”
“What you’ve got there will work for now,” she interrupted. “Tear open the hemostatic packet.”
Kealey pulled off the top and handed it to Allison, who applied the granulated agent to the wound after carefully brushing away Julie’s hair. Hair that had been so carefully done earlier that day at the hotel salon. That was the last time they’d spoken. Julie had been anxious but excited about the way things were coming together... .
The Celox had the effect of cauterizing the cuts without heat. As soon as the bleeding stopped, Allison pressed the gauze to the wound. It was self-adhesive and large enough to cover nearly the entire side of Julie’s head.
“It’ll do for now,” Allison said.
She looked up, and Kealey followed her gaze. O’Neill was standing behind him with two men and a collapsible gurney.
“We’ve been ordered to medevac her to GW,” she said.
“I’m coming with her,” Allison said.
“Yes, ma’am,” O’Neill replied. “In fact, we’ve just received instructions to that effect.” She regarded Kealey. “You too, sir.”
“I’m a civilian—”
“The president has requested it personally,” O’Neill replied. She grinned. “I was instructed to say that when you said what you did.”
Kealey grinned back. It felt good to smile, even at something stupid. “I’ve got a car in the garage here—”
“It will be taken care of,” O’Neill replied.
While they were talking, the gurney had been assembled and Julie carefully lifted onto it. Kealey excused himself to have a few words with Colin, who had made his way to the hall, and ten minutes later they were on board an FBI chopper, an intravenous saline drip in Julie’s arm, and a transfusion bag feeding blood into the other from a separate line. Although she’d experienced no respiratory difficulties at any point, oxygen was being provided through a breather as a routine precaution. The techs had gone through the checklist of vital signs and had determined her to be in serious but stable condition.
As the helicopter rose smoothly into the night, Kealey looked back at the spotlit disaster zone that had once been the Baltimore Convention Center. Smoke was still curling from several areas as firefighters pumped water into sections from which personnel had been evacuated. Crowds of locals and tourists were gathered beyond the extensive police barricades, and Kealey could see the reds of braking lights, and the glare of headlights, as traffic was backed up for miles.
The ripples of disaster,
he thought. Whether the disaster was natural or man-made, the impact came in waves, short term and longer term, keeping people physically and psychologically destabilized. The effect on the individual and on society was aggressively exponential, far surpassing the destructive force of the event itself.
Kealey sat back in the fold-down seat, let his head lean back against the gently vibrating headrest. There was nothing he could do about the big picture. His job had always been to focus on the triggers. Even now, his forensic soul was sifting through the rubble. As Allison looked down at the men who were redressing Julie’s leg, he shut his eyes and replayed everything he knew.
The hostiles had been composed of Eastern European and Middle Eastern personnel. Probably the bombers as well. These were suicide attacks, from the look of it. Kealey had noticed what appeared to be the remnants of a body near the scorched epicenter of the ballroom blast. The dark blast radius and destructive swath suggested the attack had come near the entrance, not near the podium. Someone was hanging to the rear, probably near the open bar, where a suitcase or shopping bag could have been concealed.
How many people were involved? he wondered. The entire event had consisted of two waves of coordinated attacks: three bombings followed by the hostage taking. There were at least three bombers, multiple hostage takers, and who knew how many people in support roles, individuals who had not been apprehended.
It was big—at least the size of the September 11 attacks. How did something of that magnitude, with so many moving parts, get past the many watchful eyes of United States intelligence?
He didn’t want to contemplate the logical answer. It was one of those worst-case scenarios that had always troubled his bosses at the Company.
What had scared them most was not the foreign jihadists or the homegrown terrorists, but what they had come to refer to as the Fort Hood scenario, named after the attack that killed twelve and injured twenty-nine in November 2009, when an army psychiatrist turned a .357 Magnum and an FN Five-seveN semiautomatic on his fellow soldiers.
An inside job
.
Kealey was keen to know what the president and his team had uncovered. But he knew from experience that it was probably nothing that would bring them close to understanding the magnitude of the support system that was responsible for Baltimore.
And was probably planning something else.
CHAPTER 11
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
J
essica Muloni sat in a wood-paneled study, watching the convention center disaster on her iPhone.
She had been sitting in a deep armchair in the large room for over ninety minutes. The only person she’d seen was a man, about fifty, who had a very light step and wore a dark blue suit and tie. She met his feathery voice first as he buzzed her through the gate, then saw him briefly as he escorted her down a long, wide corridor notably devoid of ancestral oil paintings and lined instead with unfamiliar art by familiar American masters, like the Wyeths and O’Keeffe and Johns and Remington. Most of it was traditional, proud. The man showed her into this room; pointed out the beverage tray with its water, soda, ice; asked if she would like something to eat—she did not, thank you—then pointed to a phone by which he could be reached and closed the door silently.
She had accessed the CNN app on her phone, tucked it in her belt, and let it play as she moved around the room. About a half hour in, after she had looked at the collection of first editions and antique maps, she had almost called to ask for Liz to come by. Something about the woman intrigued her. Her poise was not an affectation. There seemed to be some steel in that woman’s spine.
Muloni went through two cans of ginger ale, found a small lavatory behind a pocket door beside a massive fireplace, then sat in the armchair and closed her eyes. She resisted calling Langley for inside updates because she didn’t want to leave a phone-to-phone e-trail. Her coworkers knew she was on special assignment; she didn’t want any of them to try and find out exactly where.
The CNN broadcast became white noise, and she dozed lightly, a habit acquired from years in the field: both the ability to catch some sleep where she could, and to wake quickly and alert as needed.
The snap of footsteps in the hallway woke her. She had slumped slightly and sat up almost involuntarily. She poked off her phone, put it on the side table and rose as Trask entered the room. Muloni was standing before she was even fully awake. She wouldn’t have fooled him, if that was her goal; she had noticed security cameras in the corners and in the hallway. Nothing happened here that Trask didn’t know about.
He came forward behind an extended hand, a big smile, and an apologetic wince.
“So sorry,” he said. “It was partly business, and partly ... mea culpa ... I lost track of the hour with all that’s happening out there.” He gestured vaguely toward one of the room’s two big windows before clasping her hand in both of his.
“I understand,” she said.
“I’m Jacob Trask. It’s a pleasure.”
“Jessica Muloni, sir,” she said. “It’s an honor.”
She didn’t know why, but she expected him to feign modesty and dismiss the compliment. He did not.
“Robinson and Elisabeth,” he said, gesturing her back into the armchair while he sat in another. “They treated you well?”
“Very well, Mr. Trask. Liz—Elisabeth—in particular. She fascinated me.”
“A remarkable woman,” Trask agreed. “She’s the former Athens-Clarke County sheriff, well connected among regional law enforcement. We knew each other through mutual political connections, and two months after retiring she came to work for me. She missed the excitement. And her patrol car.” He chuckled. “She said she would go to the market on a scooter to save on gas and would feel ...
Unempowered
was the word she used. No horsepower, no sidearm, no responsibility. Now she’s a highly trained security chauffeur. She’s had all the evasive and defensive training, and she carries a small arsenal in the glove compartment, under the dash, and upon her person.”
Muloni smiled. Trask seemed personable enough, accessible—but there was still scrim of some kind, a line he wouldn’t cross. She didn’t know what it was.
He filled a glass with ice from the bucket, shaking each piece off before dropping it into a tall glass. Then he poured water. He did not offer her any, and then she knew what it was: he was being kind to an employee, but not servile. He did not offer her a refill, did not ask her about herself or her trip. His one question was about how his staff had treated her. Even his apology was by way of explanation, not actual regret.
“You are surprised to be here,” he said.
“More than a little, sir,” she confessed.
“What did your superiors tell you?”
“Nothing,” she said. “If they knew why, they didn’t share that information.”
“They did not know why,” he said. “It was strictly need to know.”
The CIA doesn’t know why I’m here, but a civilian does,
she thought. That was a little unnerving. As if the legends were true, that all the events in the United States—indeed, the world—were understood and manipulated by just a handful of mega-powerful industrialists and financiers.
“Your prisoner of late, Yasmin Rassin, is no longer in captivity,” he said. “Nor is she in Pakistan.”
Muloni immediately superimposed that information with the attack on the convention center. It didn’t fit—time-wise, in terms of her modus operandi, or pertinent to her skill set. Besides, she was a mercenary, not an ideologue.
The agent said nothing; she had nothing to add. She wondered how Trask knew and why he was telling her this, but asking wouldn’t get him to say anything he wasn’t already planning to tell her.
“While you process that, here’s the rest,” Trask went on. “We believe she is in the United States, possibly in New York. You are to find her and recapture her if you can, remove her if it’s necessary. You will have the proper authorization, in writing, within the hour in your personal e-mail. Encryption code Date Three is being used.”
Each agent assigned a date to the standard codes, an assignation known only to him- or herself and the high-security dispatcher. For Muloni, Date One was the day of her high school prom, Day Two was the day she saw Rush in concert, and Day Three was the day she had her appendix out. None of these were likely to be guessed by a hacker.
“The reason you are
here,
the reason I am telling you this, is that we believe she is in the custody of people who are in my employ. I have been watching them for some time, concerned that some of our technology was showing up in foreign weapons systems. Were their rogue status to become commonly known, the impact on my business—much of which involves government contracts that affect your own organization—would be disastrous. Your superiors have authorized you to be seconded to my own security team to track and eliminate my employees and their assassin. Your record is impressive and, now that I’ve met you, I believe what I have been told. You are someone that people know they can trust.” He took a long drink, his steely eyes never leaving the agent. When he finished, he said, “And no. I do not know why they want her. But I can only assume one thing.”
“They want to kill you,” she said.
He regarded her, his gaze grown colder. “Why is that the first thing that came to your mind?”
She tensed, wishing she hadn’t spoken. “I read the corporate file. There is no acknowledged successor. Removing you would create conflict, a distraction. I thought it might open your contracts to other bidders.”
He nodded. “A reasonable guess. Most of my business
is
built on long-standing relationships. But I don’t believe that I am the target. Besides, these men already have access to me.”
“With her, their hands would be clean.” She corrected herself quickly. “Clean
er
.” They were already dirty to some degree. Otherwise, Trask wouldn’t suspect them.
He considered this before dismissing it. “No. It is someone else and for some other purpose. They have access to our technology. They could take the company down by corrupting our resources.”
“You found out you’d been compromised by reverse engineering the situation,” she said. She was in this far with her pushing. She might as well go all the way. “How did you identify the personnel?”
He grinned. “Reverse engineering the situation,” he said. “I like that. It’s exactly what we did. Found our technology, and instead of suing the Chinese company, we infiltrated their plant, found the source of the leak, traced it back to our R & D division, known, ironically enough, as MoleS—Molecular Studies. They’re responsible for making electronic relays from single molecules.”
She probably looked as surprised as she felt. She thought single-molecule wires and conjugated molecular on-off switches were still mostly theory.
Back to silent mode,
Muloni decided. She was out of her element on all fronts.
“We do not know if the industrial saboteurs are aware that
we
know what they’ve done,” Trask went on. “What’s more, though they have been watched here, their personal communications monitored, there appears to be only one connection between them and the escape of Ms. Rassin. The Pakistanis on board the incoming flight were using our Minotaur secure phones. Two separate systems, interfaced internally, impossible to crack without the exact code because the components separate if there is any unauthorized access. The electronic bridge between receive and transmit literally breaks down, sealing memory from even the user. Those phones were hacked. The arrival time of the jet was known, the movements of the Pakistanis were also known, and they were slain inside the terminal where you searched the prisoner. Their bodies were found two hours after takeoff—by which time the jet had landed at JFK. We assume your target is still there. Otherwise, why fly her to such a heavily monitored area when a smaller airport in another city would have sufficed?”
Because it’s easier to stay lost in a crowd, for one thing,
she thought.
Trask drained the water glass. She had a sudden image of him as a cactus, lean and thirsty, with invisible thorns. Maybe it wasn’t just
noblesse oblige
this man was about. Maybe she was sensing something dangerous.
“If they are aware of us watching them, that does not mean they are aware of you,” he went on. “Security personnel come and go frequently. That shouldn’t raise any red flags.”
“Unless someone links me to Rassin,” she pointed out.
He grinned. “That will make your hunt a little easier, not to mention more exciting. But I don’t think that has happened. We had people at the airport, looking for anyone who might be tracking Elisabeth. Your pickup was clean. They will be there when you depart to make sure it stays that way.”
He put the glass on the tray and rose. She did as well. Apparently, the audience was at an end.
“Thank you for making the trip,” he said, offering both hands again. “I wanted to meet you and to tell you personally how important this is to me, to my business, and to our nation.” He locked her hand in his again. “You will have whatever resources you need to carry out your assignment, the only caveat being that you keep this to yourself.”
“Mr. Trask, there is someone I’d like to talk to.”
His face and body locked. He did not release her hand. He was like a machine that had died suddenly. “Who?”
“I would like to consult with a colleague at the FBI about his operational checklists.”
“You have none of your own?”
She smiled a little smile. “Our organization is not chartered for domestic surveillance as such. I don’t want to miss any potential red flags the target may throw off.”
“You may talk to your associate discretely,” Trask said.
“Thank you, sir.”
“You understand,” Trask went on, his voice thicker, her hand still his prisoner, “we will be dealing with the industrial sabotage on our own. What I’m concerned about—all
you
need be concerned about—is your target. You will kill to protect it. You will die, if necessary, to protect it.
Those
points may not be in your friend’s checklist.”
“Fully understood,” she replied. Something about the way he said that chilled her. Then again, everything about this man was a little off-putting. ”But there may be tracking mechanisms embedded in the MoleS operation that can lead us to Rassin. Some angle, some component my colleague might think of. Something I can pass along to your people to investigate.”
She said that a little stubbornly, she hoped.
It took a moment but Trask relaxed. The smile returned. He released her hand. He studied her for what felt like an interminably long time. “Do you understand the instructions, or must they come from your Director?”
A man did not go from being a wealthy dilettante to a major power broker without having a will of iron.
“I understand, Mr. Trask,” she replied. She did not want her disobedience booted up to the director.
“And you’ll follow those instructions?” he added. It wasn’t so much a question as a command.
“Of course,” she said—a little too obediently to sit well on the conscience, but that was what was needed. Muloni also appreciated—despite the part of her that hated the reality of it—that she was an African American woman of Muslim heritage who was being given an opportunity to land some very big game. That was the kind of takedown that made careers and helped to dispel Islamophobia inside the Company and out.

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