Джек Марс - House Divided

It had every technological innovation from Mark Swann’s fever dreams – including its own server farm, an encrypted network from which Swann could easily access spy satellites and data surveillance programs like ECHELON, and a small dedicated room for piloting drones. The workout center (complete with cardio equipment, weight machines, and a heavily padded sparring room) and the cafeteria were on the third floor. The soundproof gun range was in the basement.

The agency had twenty employees, the perfect size to respond to unfolding events fast, light, and with total flexibility. The new SRT was in its infancy, and they were still building teams and working to entice superstars away from private organizations, other government agencies, and the military.

Spun off from the FBI and now organized as a sub-agency of the Secret Service, the arrangement limited Luke’s interactions with the federal bureaucracy. He reported directly to the President of the United States, which at the moment seemed to be working out just fine.

Trudy Wellington poked her head out of her office as Luke passed. She was sitting in her wheeled office chair, and had rolled it to the doorway.

“Luke, I have something for you,” she said.

He glanced down at her and did a pretend double-take. “Don’t you have a home?”

She smiled and shook her head. “You know where my home is.”

Trudy was his science and intelligence officer, and her office was ten feet from his. Trudy looked slim and beautiful as ever in a green boiled wool coat and blue jeans. She had done away with the big, round, owlish red-rimmed glasses she used to hide behind. Now her pretty blue eyes were front and center. Those eyes always seemed to watch Luke closely.

Trudy was a mystery wrapped in a conundrum. For years, Luke had relied on her for intel and scenario spinning. But things had gotten complicated. After the Mount Weather disaster, after the original SRT boss, Don Morris, was implicated in a plot to overthrow the United States, it turned out Trudy had been in the midst of a long affair with him. She was arrested and held without bail under suspicion of conspiracy to commit treason. That should be enough to disqualify any person from working in intelligence again. Even worse, after she got out of jail, she disappeared. Her whereabouts during the year she was missing was something she refused to talk about. Things were complicated.

Even so, Luke had hired her to work at the new SRT anyway. Trudy and Luke had had their own brief dalliance during the Ebola crisis, something they never talked about and seemed to have put in the past. And Trudy was valuable for her ability to gather intelligence, and to make sense of it when she did. She was, to Luke’s mind, the best in the business.

“Okay,” Luke said. “What do you have for me?”

“It’s something from Swann.”

“Swann is here?” Luke said.

She shook her head. “Of course not. It’s seven o’clock in the morning. But he’s awake and he sent it to me a few minutes ago. As you know, we’ve got a short list of people we’re keeping tabs on. One of these is a man named Mustafa Boudiaf.”

Trudy turned into her office and picked up her tablet off her desk. Luke followed her to the threshold. She scrolled through some information.

“Mustafa Boudiaf,” she said. “He lives in Baltimore. Sixty-three years old, American citizen, born in Algeria during the Algerian War of Independence. He came to this country when he was nine. He spent much of his childhood in Algiers, and witnessed atrocities committed by both the French and the FLN.”

“How do we know that?” Luke said.

Trudy shrugged. “We listen to his telephone conversations.”

Luke nodded. “Okay.”

“Boudiaf appears to be a fundraiser for Islamic extremist movements in North Africa. Swann has tracked him moving large sums of cryptocurrencies on the dark web, and to a lesser extent, across popular crypto trading platforms like Coinbase. Those platforms are unregulated, but easy enough to watch.”

“What’s his cover?” Luke said.

“He’s an Uber driver, works nights mostly, often late nights. We believe he meets with donors and other people in his networks under the pretense of picking up fares. Once in the car, they’re free to talk for as long as the ride lasts. Swann has tracked him taking fares up to Philadelphia, northern New Jersey, and New York. He routinely drives into DC and out to Norfolk.”

“All right,” Luke said. “I’ll bite. Why is he on our radar today?”

Trudy raised an index finger.

“This morning, at four twelve a.m., just minutes after the plane crash in the Sinai, Boudiaf answered a phone call. Swann said he’s been unable to trace back the call, but it came from outside the United States. The man who called spoke in Arabic. He kept it brief. He said a phrase that, translated into English, means, It is done. Then he hung up.”

“Interesting,” Luke said. “But probably not enough on its own.”

“That was one,” Trudy said. “The second thing is that Mustafa Boudiaf is preparing to leave the country. Three days ago, a moving van pulled up to his house in Baltimore. The workers took a lot of furniture, boxes, and electronic equipment out of the place and drove off with it. Instead of taking the stuff to another house, they took it to a storage facility – a storage facility outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.”

“Odd,” Luke said.

“Swann says that two nights ago, Boudiaf purchased one-way plane tickets for himself, and his family, to Algiers. The flight is tomorrow night out of JFK, assuming the snowstorm lets up. The house he lives in is a rental. Very soon, Mustafa Boudiaf is going to be gone, and it’ll be like he was never here.”

“What’s your gut?” Luke said.

Trudy nodded. “He was involved in taking down that plane. Maybe in a small way, maybe in a large way. At the very least, he had prior knowledge the attack was coming. Now he’s leaving.”

“I was just at the White House,” Luke said.

Trudy’s eyes flashed… something. Luke couldn’t tell what it was.

“It was a Situation Room meeting. There was a general there from the Joint Special Operations Command. He said they think this plane crash was a prelude to something larger, and was maybe even designed as a decoy. Could Boudiaf be leaving because the next attack happens here?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Trudy said.

Luke nodded. “Let’s pick him up. Can we get an assist from local law enforcement?”

Trudy shook her head. Her hair bobbed the slightest amount. “Not a chance. Too risky. The Baltimore PD is trying to live down a lot of bad publicity right now. There’s no way we’ll get an arrest warrant based on what we have, especially not at a moment’s notice. So the cops up there won’t touch this – it’s exactly the kind of thing that if played wrong, looks like a human rights violation.”

“Well, let’s play it right then. How many people in Boudiaf’s house?”

“Seven.”

Luke’s shoulders slumped. “Seven people?”

Trudy nodded and raised her eyebrows. “Boudiaf has a young wife and a five-year-old daughter. He has an adult son from a previous marriage, who lives in the house with his own wife and young son. And Boudiaf’s adult nephew lives there, too.”

“So two children live in the house?” Luke said.

“Yes, and they’ll probably be home today because of the snow.”

Luke rolled his eyes. “Terrific. Plus two other adult males.”

“Yes,” Trudy said.

“What do we suppose Boudiaf is doing right now?” Luke said.

“Given the late hours he tends to keep, we suppose he’s sleeping.”

“Then let’s get on it. If you don’t mind, give Swann a kick in the butt for me and get him in here.”