Mike Lawson - House Divided

“Certainly you can locate him via his cell phone, Claire.”

It irritated her that he would say something so obvious, but she didn’t bother to tell him that the cell phone in question was an older model without a GPS chip, and it appeared that its owner not only shut it off when he wasn’t using it, he also removed the battery. But all she said was, “We’ll locate him the next time he uses the phone.” Then, before Dillon could interrupt again, she said, “And now the big item. The ambulance driver, the one with no ID who was injured in a wreck two blocks from the memorial? The guy I thought might be Transport? I sent people to the hospital to get his fingerprints so we could identify him but when my guys arrived they discovered the driver had died suddenly and unexpectedly from his injuries.”

“How convenient.”

“Yes, too convenient. And no autopsy was performed on the driver. One was supposed to be but it wasn’t because before the autopsy was performed, the body disappeared, and whoever took it was smart enough to disable the surveillance cameras first. But we got fingerprints before they got rid of the body. My guys did good on that.”

“So who was the driver?” Dillon said, his tone implying that he’d appreciate it if she got to the point sooner rather than later. Claire didn’t know it, but he had an appointment with his Milanese tailor in an hour.

“Sergeant Mark Witherspoon, U.S. Army. And guess what? He was stationed at Fort Myer. The Third Infantry Regiment.”

“The Old Guard? The Tomb of the Unknowns?”

“Right.”

The soldiers who guarded the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier were, in Claire’s opinion, just plain weird. Claire understood the value of pageantry and patriotic symbolism but had to wonder what normal young man would volunteer for an assignment where he had to march like a robot in front of a grave. And becoming a tomb guard was no easy matter. They didn’t take just anybody. The men selected were rigorously screened and tested, and the wash-out rate was fairly high. But what really concerned her about the sentinels was their fanaticism. Fanatics could be valuable or dangerous-depending on which organization they worked for-and these particular fanatics didn’t work for the NSA.

“Is that all?” Dillon said.

“No. Since Witherspoon was one of the tomb guards, I decided to check out the rest of the cadre over there. Two men, both infantry, both expert marksmen, were transferred to Afghanistan four hours after Russo was killed. They reassigned them to a unit that sneaks across the Pakistan border and hunts Taliban. We made some calls trying to find out who authorized the transfer, hoping that might lead us back to whoever’s running this thing, but we didn’t have any luck.”

“So what’s the significance of all this?” Dillon asked.

“I think the significance is fairly obvious,” Claire said. Was Dillon playing devil’s advocate and being deliberately obtuse? “Those men in the Third Infantry are the kind of zealots you’d recruit if you wanted to pull off some kind of wet black op in the United States. They’d tell those soldiers that Russo was a terrorist and for the sake of God and Country he had to go, and those boys would do it. Then, after the hit, they moved them so far from civilization that they wouldn’t have to worry about them talking to anyone. They’ve basically put ’em on ice until they need them again.”

“But who’s they, Claire?”

“Well, obviously I don’t know yet, Dillon,” she said, making no attempt to hide her irritation. “But whoever they is, they have major clout. We’re talking about people with heavy pull at the Pentagon to be able to get those soldiers transferred the way they did.”

“But you don’t know for sure that the soldiers who were transferred were involved with Russo’s death.”

“No, I don’t. But it feels right.”

Dillon said, “Hmm,” which Claire knew meant: Maybe, but data would be nice.

“So, is that all?” Dillon asked.

“Is that all! I’d say that’s quite a bit.”

“I apologize if I implied otherwise. I’m just asking if you have any more facts.”

“No.”

“Then could you summarize, please.”

Claire just stared at him for a moment-she didn’t have time to repeat herself-but she took a breath and complied. “We have a man who was one of the last people to see General Martin Breed alive. He was killed by some person or organization using encrypted military com gear, and the killers may have come from the Third Infantry Regiment stationed at Fort Myer. We also have an FBI agent who is on the take and appears to be trying to cover up how Russo was killed. And, last, the person who controls Hopper, based on the cell phone he’s using, may have some connection to Fort Myer.”

“But who was Messenger, Claire? You haven’t discussed him-or her-at all.”

“I don’t know. I’m still looking at accidental deaths and homicides that occurred around the time Russo died. So far, nobody who’s died looks right.”

“Did you read the funnies this morning?” Dillon said.

The funnies was Dillon’s term for The Washington Post because they got the facts wrong so often.

“Yes,” she said. And then Dillon watched her blue eyes focus on the wall behind him as she tried to recall what she’d read.

“Oh, shit,” she said. “I’m so used to looking at data we’ve pinched that it didn’t even occur to me to consider the Post as a legitimate source. God, I’m sorry, Dillon. I’m… I’m embarrassed.”

He could tell she was. “That’s all right. You have a lot on your plate. And the fact that Robert Hansen is missing doesn’t mean he’s Messenger, but the possibility is… interesting.”

Dillon smiled as Claire left his office, thinking it was extremely rare when she overlooked something. She was incredibly bright, very good at her job, and she just hated to lose. And she was, without a doubt, the most driven person he knew. In fact, it worried him that she had nothing else in her life: no lover, no pets, no hobbies-no joy. She had her job and nothing else, and that wasn’t healthy. She had never learned, as Dillon had a long time ago, that some days you had to forget the work and simply enjoy being alive.

Dillon also knew that Claire wanted his job, but not for the usual reasons. She didn’t want it because she desired advancement or status or higher pay. She wanted it because she thought Dillon was blase about the work and she could do it better. But Dillon never considered her ambition a threat; it was merely a characteristic he exploited.

Nor was he worried that Claire might one day turn against him and tell his bosses what he was really doing-tell them about the shadow net that he’d created. He wasn’t worried because he knew the demons that drove Claire Whiting.

The headquarters of the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland, is located in an immense cubic structure that appears to be constructed of black reflective glass. It looms like an obsidian monolith-mysterious and ominous-over parking lots large enough to accommodate eighteen thousand vehicles.

Dillon’s office was on the ninth floor, and after Claire left he walked over to a window-a window designed to prevent anyone from seeing into his office or record what was being said there-put his hands in his pockets, and looked eastward. As he stood there, he didn’t think about Paul Russo. He thought, instead, about how it was that he and Claire came to be involved with Russo at all. He had been standing at the same window on September 11, 2001, and had just witnessed, on television, Tower Two of the World Trade Center collapsing into a mound of rubble.

That was the image burned most vividly into Dillon’s brain. Not the image of the jets flying into the towers but the image of the towers collapsing. It was America collapsing. He had never before experienced such a sense of failure, and he vowed, on that day, that he would do anything to keep such a thing from happening again.