Andrew Britton - The American

He settled back in his chair and took a long sip of coffee, enjoying the gentle draft of cool air that found its way through the ancient crevices of the timber walls. There were things still to be done, but he had time.

He had all the time in the world.

TYSON’S CORNER,HANOVER COUNTY

Looking up from the exhaustive piles of paperwork covering his temporary desk, Kealey gazed over the limited space of the CT watch center. It was packed wall-to-wall by more than 80 people who, if being judged only by their frantic gesticulations and elevated voices, might have been traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange following a merger between Microsoft and IBM.

He wanted to smile at the mental image that arrived with that thought, but was too tired and worried to see any humor in the comparison. They had been going nonstop for three days straight, but their efforts had yielded almost nothing in the way of new information. Seeking to narrow the search parameters even further, Ryan had argued that they should cut out Washington, D.C., itself, on the basis that it was too confined an area for Vanderveen to safely complete his preparations. Emily Susskind, the deputy director of the FBI, had shot down the idea without a moment’s hesitation.

Naomi had had a little more luck when she suggested that a general description of William Vanderveen should be released to the state police in Virginia and Maryland. The idea had been waved away at first: Director Landrieu argued that disclosure of another terrorist threat without definitive proof would only incite more panic, something that the president desperately wanted to avoid. Susskind had agreed with him, but Joshua McCabe had sided with Harper in support of the idea. Since the National Special Security Event designation gave the Secret Service overall control for the upcoming event, the decision was made to release the description, along with a carefully worded request for assistance in which the word terrorist did not appear once.

Nevertheless, the telephones and fax machines in the watch center had been going nonstop ever since, leads pouring in from the Area 17 office in Augusta, Division Four Headquarters in Wytheville, and the Maryland Barracks in Forestville, College Park, Easton, and Rockville. The tension in the overcrowded room increased in accordance with the workload, and as Kharmai watched yet another stack of paperwork gather in the receiving tray, she began to seriously question her own decision to involve the state troopers.

She felt a presence at her shoulder and looked up to see that Ryan was standing next to her. “Anything worth looking at?”

She shook her head and showed him the crumpled sheets of fax paper in her hands. “This stuff is worthless. If a Caucasian male between the ages of twenty and forty-five did anything to attract police attention on the eastern seaboard in the last three months, I probably have a file on him,” she said, gesturing at the pile of stacked reports. “You’d think they would know better than to waste our time with this kind of garbage.”

Kealey shrugged and said, “It’s not every day that the state police gets a request for assistance from the TTIC. We were careful with the wording in the description we sent out, but they know where it’s coming from. They’re going to assume there’s a terrorist threat, which makes their assistance valuable when the time comes to submit their budgets for the following year. They’re looking to help themselves first, Naomi.”

“Yeah, well, it would be nice if they could help us out a little bit in the process,” she mumbled.

Ryan grinned and rested a hand lightly on her shoulder. “Come on, I’ll help you look at it. If this stuff is as useless as you say it is, we’ll be done by twelve, and I’ll treat you to lunch. Sound good?”

A smile brightened her face for the first time that day. “It’s a deal.”

“What is this shit?”

Sergeant Richard Pittman looked up from the newest stack of paperwork on his desk and surveyed the room. “Where the hell did this come from? Jimmy?”

“Hell no, Sarge. That came straight from the lieutenant.”

“Yeah, straight to your desk,” Pittman grumbled. “Come on, man. Are you sure some of this isn’t yours?”

The other officer shook his head and grinned as he lumbered toward the open door. “I don’t see why you’re complaining anyway, Pitts. We got a two-hour briefing this afternoon that you get to miss out on. Everyone else is already over there. Whoever dropped that shit on your desk probably did you a favor.”

“Yeah, thanks a lot,” Pittman mumbled. He was the only person left in the room, which he was grateful for, as it gave him the opportunity to issue a long string of profanities as he picked up the heavy stack of files and dumped them next to the fax machine. After eight years with the Virginia State Police, Rick Pittman had thought, on more than one occasion, that he was finally past these kinds of monotonous chores.

He flipped through the separate sheets of paper and saw that they all seemed to be going to the same place. I guess that’s something, he thought. There must be seventy-five different reports here. At least I won’t have to enter a different phone number for each one.

Pittman punched in the number listed at the top of the first page and began feeding the sheets of paper into the fax machine. Forty-five minutes and two cups of coffee later, he pushed through a Missing Person Report for NCIC Record Entry.

The report had been filed by Jack Milbery, whose wife, in roughly fifteen minutes, would have been missing for exactly three days.

As the fax machine whirred on the receiving end in Tyson’s Corner, Will Vanderveen turned the Honda down his narrow driveway off Chamberlayne Road, leaving a spray of gravel in his wake. The day had been spent in Richmond, where he had picked up a few last-minute things. Small, inexpensive items, but items that were absolutely critical to his success. He had made the exact same purchases nearly three weeks earlier, but had exhausted his supply on two other occasions.

He had watched his speedometer carefully on the short trip south and back, but his brief sojourn into the city had passed without incident, and now most of the danger was behind him. When the time came for him to leave the farm again, regardless of what happened from that point forward, he would not be returning.

He parked the motorcycle behind the barn. There were several upturned flowerpots next to the exterior wall. Vanderveen lifted the third from the left, revealing a bulky object concealed in a carefully folded dish towel. After he collected the HK. 40 caliber USP Compact, he took his time clearing the barn and the house before carrying his purchases up to the kitchen. He had learned from the unfortunate incident with the realtor. He would not be so careless again.

In the harsh light of the only bathroom, he propped his last remaining passport up against the cracked tile and stared deep into the face of Claude Bidault, and then up to his own reflection in the mirror.

His face, without cosmetic aids, was surprisingly youthful despite the fact that he was closing in on forty. He noticed for the first time that fine lines were beginning to appear around his eyes, but otherwise, he looked much the same as he had twenty years earlier. The subtle effects of aging did not bother him in the least. Like all people blessed with perfect aesthetics, Vanderveen had the luxury of indifference when it came to his own appearance.

Although his preference was to go clean-shaven, he had allowed his beard to grow untrimmed for the past two weeks, and it had filled in considerably. The blond hair on his jaw was a sharp contrast against his naturally tanned skin. His hair had been returned to its original gold with the aid of a chemical shampoo. Dyeing his hair brown had been the only cosmetic change he had made on his return to the States; in the first few weeks there was too much that had to be done, too much that required his undivided attention for him to deal with the added burden of a cumbersome disguise.