John Miller - Inside Out

“Think how disturbing it is to all the people they killed.”

“Whoever runs the country does so because we make that possible by removing obstacles, keeping the path free of threats to our country's security. For fifty years a few of us have been fighting a very necessary war. Every instinct I have tells me to let my men bury you, but I believe enough innocent people are dead. I would rather persuade you how futile any attempt to oppose us is and let you go on with your life.”

The man who had been at Winter's front door stood in the hallway, holding the silenced SIG Sauer casually at his side, its barrel down.

“I am going to tell you how Herman obtained the intelligence it took to pull off the assaults.”

“To illustrate to me how powerless I actually am.”

“Exactly,” Fifteen said.

Winter sat slowly up and put his feet on the floor. He felt light-headed from being incapacitated for so long but no other ill effects from the drugging.

“If you make any heroic moves, you will be killed. If you grab me, my people will shoot through me to kill you. Even if you managed to get out, my people would visit your mother and son before you could hail a cab.”

Winter felt a surge of rage. “Can you tell me where I am?”

“I'll show you.”

“You are on the fifth floor,” Fifteen told Winter as they stood near the elevator. “Herman Hoffman, our host, is known as the Dean of Shadow because he oversaw the CIA's post-World War Two dark operations. After the Bay of Pigs, he realized there would always be politicians around to muck things up, so there needed to be an independent organization that could operate under the radar, a constant force presence in an ever-changing world. He developed the psychological testing that insured a steady source of talent, drawn from the pool of civilians applying for admission to the armed forces. Mostly he wanted men and women who, but for a few minor flaws, might have been great additions to the Special Forces.”

“Like psychopathic personality disorder?”

Fifteen frowned. “A cheap jab, Winter. He wanted intelligent, motivated individuals who would dedicate their lives to a larger picture-be loyal to their controllers knowing only that their jobs were necessary without being in the loop with the decision-makers. Every armed forces recruit takes a battery of tests, and those tests have questions embedded in them that set off triggers, draw our interest. Of every twenty thousand of those men and women, perhaps twenty are selected for more in-depth testing. Out of every hundred who make it through the process, one or two might make the grade. Sometimes none of them do. There are units scattered all over the world, ready to respond at a moment's notice.”

“So when Herman says kill six sailors and six deputy marshals, they just do it?”

“Yes.”

The room was furnished with a large TV, couches, tables, chairs, and a blank blackboard. A short wall separated the rec room from a kitchen, reminding Winter of a fire station.

“No windows,” Winter noted.

“This light is a blend of fluorescent and incandescent to simulate daylight. Follow me,” Fifteen said cheerfully. He led Winter back the way they had come after leaving the bedroom.

“This is the bathroom, and just here…” Fifteen opened the door beyond the bathroom. “Our ordnance room. Sorry I can't let you go in, but feel free to look.”

The room played host to stacks of machine guns, rifles, shotguns, handguns, and crates of bullets and other weapons, including grenades. There was also an open case of Semtex, the Eastern Bloc's version of plastic explosive, with about half of it missing. It was as harmless as modeling clay unless it was detonated by a nearby blast or one of the detonators stacked in a small box beside the crate.

“Very impressive,” Winter said.

“Just hardware. I'll show you what's impressive.”

Winter stood next to a garbage chute, while Fifteen opened the door at the end of the hallway. Fifteen led Winter inside. Three computers, along with assorted electronic equipment, filled a U shape of counters. On one of the computer monitors, a screen saver performed a series of optical illusions. Fifteen moved its mouse and the screen changed to show a satellite overview of a section of the Eastern Seaboard with four yellow dots on the screen.

“These are connected to CIA, FBI, and NSA supercomputers, as well as to our spy satellites.”

The man carrying the handgun came in and whispered something to Fifteen.

“I have to go upstairs for a moment. Please relax until I return. Just so you know, the phone isn't live, and the computers will not allow you access.”

“No problem,” Winter replied, bewildered.

“My man will be outside until I return.” Fifteen closed the door behind him, leaving Winter alone in the communications room.

Winter turned his attention to the computer screen. Even without names to identify the dots' locations, he knew pretty much what they signified. One of them was Washington, another Rook Island, a third was Richmond, and the fourth dot Ward Field in rural Virginia. He clicked on one and the screen went dark, the CPU turning itself off.

A stack of sixteen-by-twenty-inch photographs beside the computer caught his attention. The first one on the pile was of Rook Island. Winter's heartbeat quickened. He located the safe-house roof, tennis court, pool, beach, and trees-and the radar station beyond them. The picture had no date stamp, but the shadows told him that it was a morning shot. Obviously, these people not only could get the pictures from space, but they could get the CIA to task or aim spy satellites for them.

The next shot was of Ward Field and had been taken Friday morning, when he was there. He knew by the ruined hangar, the techs in the debris field, the FBI's tents, and because the Lear was parked in the field beside Shapiro's Gulfstream II.

The Arlington shot had been taken at night. He made out the roof and parking lots of a building he was sure he recognized as the U.S. Marshal headquarters. Winter didn't understand the significance.

The final shot in the stack was a grid of streets and the tops of buildings; he assumed, because of the river, it was probably downtown Richmond because the fourth dot had appeared on that city. He could make out cars and even a few people. The shadows and the orientation told him that it was a late-morning or late-afternoon shot. Someone had taken a grease pencil and circled what appeared to be a pay phone.

Winter was so intrigued by the pictures Fifteen had wanted him to see that he almost forgot he was in enemy territory.

An eight-by-ten photograph alone on the counter next to a printer distracted him. This was not a satellite picture, but one taken on a city street from ground level. A woman with spiky blond hair, dressed in black and wearing glasses, had been snapped as she exited a doorway, the name HOTEL GRAND etched into the glass window over the door. Despite the difference in her appearance, Winter recognized Sean immediately. He remembered the phone call to him at home the day before, the traffic noise-these people must have gotten information from the NSA, who intercepted the call and located the phone which led them to her, in Richmond.

He had to find out why they still felt a need to track Sean and convince Fifteen to call the dogs off her-unless it was too late.

He opened the door expecting to find the guard, but the hallway was empty. “Hello?” Winter called out. Nothing.

His watch told him it was 4:15. He opened the bathroom door, hoping to find the guard in there. The room was occupied, but not by the guard. Two corpses sat on the tiled floor, their backs resting against the wall. He knelt down to inspect them. Both wore ballistic vests under their coats. The emaciated men looked like winos. The closest had greasy hair and a nappy beard. His hands were callused, the fingernails caked with filth. He was dressed in new clothes, and the corner of something stuck out of his vest. Winter pulled out a foreign passport and opened it. The picture wasn't that of the corpse but showed a younger man with long hair and angular features. The name on it was Alexis Philipoff, a Russian national.