Barry Lando: Deep Strike

“I’ll get back in half an hour,” said the doctor.

“They say it’s urgent.”

He grunted, put down the scalpel. “Finish up,” he told the assistant, as he walked off. “It’s good practice, and the patients never complain.”

For a few minutes, Steve observed as the assistant continued. Then, impatient for the report on the water sample, he asked directions to the lab.

“Second floor,” the assistant muttered, wielding the shears. “You can’t miss it.”

Steve mounted the stairs, removing the mask as he went. God, it was good to get away, but the bilious stink of death stuck to him. It pervaded everything.

The lab was small and brightly lit, the technician an enormous blond woman, encased in pale green gown and pants. Her hair, tightly fastened, was also covered with an elastic bonnet. “Janet Ramage,” she said, giving Steve a friendly smile with thick fleshy lips. She glanced at her white plastic gloves. “Can’t shake your hand, but welcome. Don’t get too many visitors back here.”

“I’m interested in the case they’re working on right now, the Hunt case,” said Steve. “The fluid in the lungs.”

“Right, just finished that. Kind of special, is it? Don’t normally get other samples to look at. You the one who provided it?”

“It’s from the Fountainhead River where Hunt’s body was found. I want to know if it has the same chemical makeup as the water that was in Hunt’s lungs.”

“I wasn’t sure we’d get enough of a sample from the lungs to test, but we did,” she said bringing up the results on her desk PC. She pointed to a glowing chart on the screen with two squiggly lines: one red, one green. “The red line is the water you brought. The green one is what came from the lungs. You can see the chemical content of the two samples is totally different.”

“How can you tell?” asked Steve.

“The water in his lungs has fluorides.” She indicated a peak on the green line. “It’s obviously drinking water from somewhere.” She moved her finger to the red line. “No resemblance at all to this sample of river water you brought.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Positive.”

At that moment, Dr. Snyder stalked in, glaring at Steve. “What the hell are you doing in our lab?”

“Looking at the results of the test,” said Steve. “Your technician here very kindly gave me the answer. Is there some prob…“

The doctor cut in, “Get the hell out of here.” Then he turned on the startled technician. “You never give results to the public. Never!” he snarled, and wheeled back to Steve. “Out. Now.”

Steve didn’t flinch. “What about the results of the autopsy?”

“I’ve no longer got the case,” Snyder barked. “Hunt was with the CIA. His file has been classified. It’s out of my hands. Out of yours too.”

One of the few advantages of Steve’s ground floor apartment in Falls Church was that it gave him direct access to the large garden at the back and the barbecue. Without a family, he wasn’t much interested in the garden, but he used the barbecue a lot, even in the off-season, when he cooked over the open flame and served the meal inside. This was one of those nights. He’d bought thick rib-eyes from O’Rourke’s, considered the best butcher in Arlington. He’d seared them and was now letting them cook along the edge of the grill. He was justifiably proud of his barbecue sauce. The secret he’d picked up from the American ambassador ten years ago in Moscow was the muscovado sugar and the superb wine vinegar he made himself. He’d just cracked a raw egg and was tossing it into the Caesar salad, another specialty for which he considered himself renowned. Aside from the quality of the romaine, the parmesan, and the garlic, the secret was the croutons, which took several hours to prepare.

He’d invited Charlie Doyle and Sarah Levin. They’d both been in O’Shaughnessy’s Bar the night Brian took a swing at him. It was the last time any of them had seen Brian alive. They’d worked intensely together for more than a year on the Russian hacking investigation – becoming part of an incredibly close-knit team, something unique, Steve thought as he poured glasses of Brunello for his guests.

“To Brian,” he said.

“To Brian!” they replied, each of them curious about Steve’s motives for the backyard gathering.

Steve’s throat was tight. He hadn’t planned the words that spilled out: “You know, to me Brian’s death was like the passing of a close relative – a brother, a son. He can never be replaced.” He paused, “I guess I’ve come to think of us all as family.”

For a few seconds, no one said anything. Seeing Steve this emotional was almost embarrassing.

Charlie took a sip of wine and broke the silence. “Family. Yeah, well, if you ask Brenda, she’d agree,” he said in his lazy South Carolina drawl. “She’s always saying I spend more time with you guys than I do with her and the kids. Says I prefer you creeps – even to basketball. ” He laughed. “Sometimes, maybe she’s right.”

It had been Charlie who found the suspicious digital fingerprints in the servers of the Democratic National Committee and tracked the hackers to a cyber-warfare unit of the Russian army.

“You did a great job with the Russian hack, Charlie. You both did,” Steve said as he served the steaks and the salad. “The bastards in the White House may try to ignore our report. They may say it’s bullshit. But we’ve put it all on the record. They can’t erase that. One day they’ll pay for what they’ve done.”

He grated a bit more parmesan on to the salad before he asked about their future plans.

Charlie stroked his goatee. “Don’t know yet. Might go to England. I’ve already been approached by some big-time operators from the Gulf. They say I could commute from London. There’s a pile of money to be made there.” He shrugged. “Those guys at least realize I’m the best hacker around.”

“Hey, Charlie,” said Sarah, putting down her fork. “You’re good, but let’s not exaggerate; remember you told me that the only reason you wound up with the agency was to keep out of jail.”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” said Charlie.

“OK, so what really happened?” asked Sarah.

Steve, who’d recruited Charlie for the CIA, knew the story; Sarah obviously did not.

Charlie shrugged, took a sip of the wine, and turned towards Sarah. “Ok, I’ll give you the short version. I was a great basketball player. I mean, really great. By the time I was a sophomore in high school in Detroit, scouts from the NBA were already after me. But I never got the chance to turn pro. I was expelled from school. Hacked into a Pentagon war game from the school’s library. Just fooling around, but they didn’t see it that way. University was out. Parents couldn’t afford it. So I set myself up as an independent contractor. Me – an independent contractor!” He pronounced the last two words slowly, with a proud grin. “I went to work for anyone willing to pay the tab. Amazing how many customers there were! Along the way I figured it would be a good idea to learn some Russian too.”

“But you couldn’t keep out of trouble,” said Steve, pointing his fork at Charlie.

“Made a bet with a couple of guys. It took me two weeks, but I managed to hack into the NSA. Too bad WikiLeaks wasn’t around then. I would have beat Snowden by ten years. Anyway, the cyber sleuths at the NSA finally caught up with me. Bottom line: I was offered a choice of three years in prison or going to work for the CIA’s new cyber unit. They were looking for the best coders.”