Vince Flynn - Act of Treason

“Shit.” McMahon had his dark blue pinstripe suit jacket open and a hand on each hip. A bulky pistol sat on his right hip and his badge was clipped to his belt above his left front pocket. As a general rule he didn’t carry his passport sized FBI credentials. Some people acted funny around guns, so he kept his badge displayed.

“You’re going to have to do better than that,” the agent continued. “The press conference is in less than three hours, and I need some real evidence. All I’ve got at the moment is a shot-up Greek guy who keeps claiming he was kidnapped and tortured. This could get really embarrassing.”

Kennedy wondered if that was what Rapp was up to. Punishing everyone for going public with this.

“Let’s get Brooks in here,” Juarez said. “She knows what the hell is going on.”

“Are you sure about that?” Kennedy asked.

“Hell yes. She told me herself that Mitch told her to say nothing. He said he would show up in a few days and take care of everything, and in the meantime she was to keep her mouth shut.”

“I know that’s what he told her, but that doesn’t mean she knows what he’s up to.”

“How about simply telling us what in the hell really happened in Cyprus?” Juarez asked.

“How about telling me anything?” McMahon jumped in. “She shows up at Andrews yesterday in a white rental van, from where, we have no idea. We were expecting them to land on a plane. My people ran down the plates on the van. It was rented by some LLC out of Baltimore that exists on paper only. We checked the gate logs at the base. She showed up five minutes before the handoff. We called Customs and Immigration. They show no record of Brooks or Rapp entering the country yesterday. I don’t suppose either of you would like to tell me what aliases they were traveling under?”

Kennedy and Juarez didn’t bother looking at each other. They both shook their heads in response to the agent’s question.

McMahon looked down at the ground and grabbed the back of his neck with his right hand. After a moment he said, “Now I might not care how in the hell they got this guy from Cyprus to the States without clearing him through customs, but I know a whole lot of other people whoare going to care. People at Justice are already asking questions, and I’m sure when this guy gets a lawyer he is going to want to review the chain of custody. Add to that the press and you guys are going to get a whole lot of unwanted attention. My office tells me they’re already receiving calls. They’re going to be all over you by this afternoon.”

That was it, Kennedy thought to herself. This was exactly what Mitch was worried about. Their tactics and methods being exposed. So the question she had for herself was, What was Rapp really up to? Was he destroying evidence or collecting evidence? Or both?

“I say we get her in here.” Juarez said in an impatient voice.

“Brooks,” Kennedy replied.

“Yes.”

“I think you two are being a bit hard on her.”

Juarez ’s eyes practically popped out of his head. “Hard on her? I’ve had the kid gloves on until now. I’m half tempted to get the Office of Security in here. Have them turn on the hot lights and polygraph her ass.”

Kennedy placed her glasses on top of a leather briefing folder. She used both hands to square them up perfectly in the center of the smooth, brown surface. Kennedy had thought Juarez would threaten to do this, but she wondered how much of it was bluster. The move carried with it certain risks. The Office of Security would start a paper trail that just might get the Inspector General’s Office involved, and then they were only one step away from the Department of Justice and the FBI.

“I think she’s been put in a very difficult position.”

“What’s so difficult about being debriefed by your boss?”

“I think everyone needs to take a step back and look at this from a different angle.”

“What angle could that possibly be?” Juarez asked sarcastically.

Kennedy shot him a look and said, “Mitch’s angle.”

“Irene,” Juarez ’s jaw was clenched, “I have a lot of respect for Mitch, and he has pulled some pretty goofy shit over the years, but this one takes the prize.”

“You were as upset as I’ve ever seen you yesterday,” McMahon said. “Why the hell are you all of a sudden defending him?”

Kennedy leaned back in her chair and glanced out the window before answering. “I was distracted yesterday. I think I made a mistake.”

“What mistake?”

“I did not advise the president as closely as I should have on this.”

“How so?”

“Going public…” Kennedy shook her head, “this fast…bad idea.”

“Mitch told you this was the guy. One hundred percent. The smart thing for you to do was turn him over.”

“We could have waited…should have waited a week or two, or maybe we should have just let Mitch take care of the problem for us.”

“I didn’t hear that,” McMahon said as he shut his eyes tightly.

“What’s done is done,” Juarez added. “What I want are answers. I’m willing to give Brooks one more chance. Let’s bring her in here, lay out her options, and get to the bottom of this. I want to know what in the hell Mitch is trying to hide.”

Kennedy studied Juarez for a moment and then looked to McMahon.

“Would it help,” McMahon asked, “if I left?”

“Probably,” Juarez answered.

“I don’t think it’s going to matter.”

“Why?” asked Juarez.

“I don’t think she’s going to talk, but we’ll give it a shot.” Kennedy leaned forward and hit the intercom button on her phone. “Sheila, would you please send Ms. Brooks in?”

Kennedy stood and pointed to the couch and chairs opposite her desk. She read the look of disapproval on Juarez ’s face. “We’re going to try this the civilized way first.”

“Fine,” Juarez grumbled. “You go ahead and play the good cop. Skip can play the bad cop. I’ll just play the boss from hell. In my current mood it won’t require much acting.”

The cyber café was one of those coffee shops that you could find in virtually every hip counterculture neighborhood across America. Each one, a stand-alone sole proprietorship or maybe an LLC with ownership of a half dozen shops at the most. They were all different, yet the same. United in their hatred of Starbucks, these shops were a blind chain with an unintended common theme. They were adorned with rickety, second-hand furniture, old laminate countertops, and a wait staff who tended to be open to body piercings, tattoos, and bad hairdos. The shops provided free Internet connection, service with an attitude, and a refuge from America ’s shallow thirst for comfort through the similarity of franchise hell.

This particular place was called Café Wired. A big hand-painted brown and white sign hung above the large glass window that fronted the sidewalk. The name was bracketed on one side by a steaming cup of coffee and the other by a laptop. There were now three of the shops in the city. One in Bethesda, another by American University, and this one a few blocks away from Howard University, not far from Rapp’s condo.

Rapp was a silent investor in the cafés. He and his brother Steven had put up the money, and Marcus Dumond ran the places. Rapp had worked with the cyber genius going on five years now. Dumond had attended MIT with Rapp’s brother. While earning his master’s degree in computer science at MIT, Dumond had managed to get into some pretty big trouble with the feds. To win a bet with some of his fellow geniuses, he hacked into one of New York ’s largest banks and then moved over a million dollars into several overseas accounts. He wasn’t caught because he left a trail. He was caught because he and his friends got drunk one night and began bragging about how easy it had been. A fellow student got wind of it and turned him in to the authorities. Dumond was facing serious jail time. That was until Steven Rapp called his brother to see if he could intervene.