Vince Flynn - Act of Treason

Kennedy opened the door and immediately noticed a puzzled look on Dumond’s face. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll know more in a minute.” He stepped into the foyer and kept tapping the keys of a very small laptop.

Rapp closed the door and kissed Kennedy on the cheek. “Tommy in bed?”

“Yes. He has school in the morning.”

Rapp took off his coat and handed it to Kennedy. Dumond was too focused on his computer to bother removing his jacket and continued down the hall toward the smell of coffee. Rapp and Kennedy followed him.

“Would anyone like coffee?” Kennedy asked.

“Please.” Rapp backed up against the black soapstone counter and placed his hands on the edge. He looked at Dumond, who hadn’t answered Kennedy, and said, “Hey, dip shit?”

Dumond tore his eyes away from the small screen and said, “Huh?”

“Coffee?”

“Sure.”

“How about ‘please’?” Rapp prodded.

“Please,” Dumond said without taking his eyes off the screen. “With cream and sugar.”

Kennedy poured two cups and took the cream from the fridge. She handed one cup to Rapp. “So what have you learned?” She placed the other cup on the table next to the cream and slid the sugar bowl over.

“So far,” Rapp said, “nothing concrete, but we have a few interesting tidbits. Back in early October, Garret flew to Switzerland for a day.”

“Another October surprise.” Kennedy was referencing a conspiracy theory which held that the Reagan camp had met secretly with members of the Iranian government and conspired to delay the release of American hostages until after they beat Carter in the 1980 presidential election.

“All we have are the dates of his departure and return. We have no idea who he met with. He did call a bank in Geneva several times before and after the trip, but again we have no idea who he spoke with.”

“E-mails?” Kennedy asked.

“We’re still trying to track all those down. The guy has at least six different addresses and he must receive and send easily a hundred a day.”

“What about Ross?”

“He was in Switzerland last weekend for an environmental summit.” Rapp held his white coffee cup by the handle. “Rivera got me the list of the people he met with while he was over there. We cross-referenced it against some of the other data and one name got kicked out: Joseph Speyer.”

“Should I know him?” Kennedy asked with a furrowed brow.

“No, but he happens to be the president of the bank in Geneva that Garret called back in October.”

“What do we know about the bank?”

Rapp pointed at Dumond. “Marcus is working on that. Apparently it’s one of Geneva ’s oldest and most secretive institutions.”

“And by far the most difficult one to hack into,” Dumond added without looking up.

“Is that what you’re working on?” Kennedy asked.

“No. Something else.” Dumond hadn’t touched his coffee. His two index fingers were busy tapping keys.

Kennedy’s stoic gaze shifted to Rapp. “What about our Belarusian friend?”

“Nothing yet. Hornig says she needs a little more time to soften him up.”

“When?” Kennedy asked impatiently.

“She thought maybe she could start in the morning.” Rapp could sense her frustration. “I didn’t think we were operating under any time constraints.”

“In two days we’re going to have a new president and vice president who might be guilty of murder and treason and god knows what else. Based on how Ross has been acting, I don’t think he’s going to waste any time getting rid of me. We need to get to the bottom of this while we still have the power to.”

“Yes,” Dumond said triumphantly. He looked up smiling. “That little bastard took me longer than I expected.”

“What little bastard?” Rapp asked.

“T-Mobile’s firewall. They must have brought in some new hot shot. It normally takes me a minute or less. This time it took me a full ten minutes.”

“What are you looking for?”

“Garret has two phones. One is a BlackBerry that he has with Verizon, and then he has a Motorola that he has through T-Mobile.” Dumond spun the small computer ninety degrees so Rapp and Kennedy could see the screen. “Here’s all of his calls.”

Kennedy looked nervous. “Marcus, I assume there’s no way this can be traced back to you.”

“Huh,” Dumond laughed. “Anyone with half a brain can hack into a system. When I do it, there’s no trace I was ever there.”

“Anything to Switzerland?” Rapp asked as he bent over to look at the screen. All it showed were the numbers that he had called or had called him. No names. There appeared to be no international calls. “Can you get us a reverse directory on these phone numbers?”

“No problem.” Dumond spun the computer, made a few keystrokes, and then spun it back. “Here’s the names associated with numbers he dialed and the time and date.”

Rapp leaned in close so he could read the tiny print. The calls were listed in descending order with the most recent one at the top of the screen. Rapp scanned the column, and halfway down the first page a name jumped out at him. “Why, I’ll be damned.”

“What?” Kennedy asked. She didn’t have her reading glasses with her.

“Our little buddy Tom Rich from theTimes called Garret right in the middle of your press conference this afternoon.”

“That seems like a bit of coincidence,” Kennedy replied.

Rapp scrolled down to the previous day’s calls. “Look here. Garret called Ross three times yesterday. And Ross called Garret five times. Look here. He called Garret at seven-oh-nine last night. I remember looking at my watch when we were in your office. It was seven-oh-four. He got off the phone with us and must have called Garret right away.”

Rapp grabbed his phone, opened it, hit talk, scrolled down to the number he wanted, and hit talk again. A few rings later Agent Rivera was on the phone. “How are the logs coming?”

“Slowly.”

“Have yesterday’s logs been filed?”

“Yes, but I don’t have them in front of me.”

“Can you get them?”

“Yes. I can pull them up on the computer.”

Rapp backed away from the kitchen table and waited.

“I’ve got them up on the screen. What are you looking for?”

“Who did Ross meet with yesterday?”

Rivera started reading a long list. Within fifteen seconds, Rapp lost his patience and asked, “Did he meet with Tom Rich?”

“The reporter?”

“Yes.”

“Mitch,” she said uncomfortably, “I’m not sure I should be giving you that kind of information.”

“I don’t have time for this right now, Maria. Trust me when I tell you it’s important.”

There was a long moment of silence, and then Rivera said, “They met yesterday evening in Ross’s suite at the Willard.”

“Thanks. I’ll call you later.” Rapp closed his phone and pointed at Dumond’s computer screen. “These calls match up perfectly. Garret set up the interview and Ross was the high-level source who fed Rich the story. Look.”

Kennedy bent forward and squinted, but before she could begin reading a new screen popped up and covered the T-Mobile page. Some type of ominous law enforcement shield sat in the middle of the screen. “Whoa,” Kennedy said, fearing their unlawful intrusion had been discovered. “Marcus, you’d better take a look at this,” she said as she backed away.

Dumond quickly set his coffee down and grabbed the computer. He spun it around, studied the screen for a split second, and then began hitting keys.

“What is it?” Rapp asked with no real worry in his voice. Dumond was the master of his own little universe. He would never initiate an incursion that could be traced back to him.