Dale Brown - Act of War

“The eight A.M. meeting hasn’t happened yet, the place is empty, no one but some grungy-looking army gopher is here, and my feet are killing me. What do we know about this Brazilian group, GAMMA?”

“Brazilian environmental and human rights activist organization. Targets multinational petroleum and energy-producing corporations in general but appears to be going after TransGlobal Energy Corporation assets more and more in particular.”

“I want to know every detail possible about GAMMA,” Kelsey said. “If the PME won’t give the information to the FBI office in Rio de Janeiro, we should send a request to the CIA Americas desk for support. And we should start pulling data on Brazilian nuclear material and weapons research programs. Brazil could be a source for bomb-making materials, if not the actual weapons themselves.”

“As long as you’re asking for the impossible, why don’t you get me a sleepover with Jennifer Lopez?” Cortez quipped. “Kel, we’ve got every agent in our office pulling sixteen-hour days since the Houston attack. Everyone is concentrating on how a backpack nuke got into the U.S. undetected. No one is looking at Brazilian ecoterrorist groups yet—we’re looking at the more credible perps, like al Qaeda, missing Russian tactical nuclear weapons, the Chinese…”

“Then get a clerk or records officer to check—it’s all computer work,” Kelsey said. “They can pass the info to you and I’ll brief the chief and get the extra manpower if we need it. But we’re just doing surveillance—it’s not fieldwork, not yet.”

“Kelsey, you’ve already pressed every clerk, records person, secretary, janitor, and doorman into doing research for us,” her partner said. “You’ve even gotten clerks in other agencies doing work for us, which I’m sure is a breach of security. At the very least you’re going to owe a lot of lunches.”

“Ramiro…”

“Uh oh, the ethnic first name—discussion must be over,” Rudy said. “Okay, I’ll get on it. Any idea what your meeting is about, and why they scheduled it for an empty building at Andrews?”

“This is not just a ‘building,’ Rudy—the Redskins could play here if they laid down some artificial turf and put up goalposts,” Kelsey said. “I have no idea. I’m hoping they’re going to fly in a witness that’ll break the Houston bombing wide open for us, but I’m not that lucky.”

“Probably has to do with that memo you sent to the director a few months back,” Cortez surmised. “Didn’t you mention something about nuclear weapons then?”

“I talked about a memo I wrote based on reports from our London and Warsaw offices about Russian tactical battlefield nuclear warheads being converted to ‘backpack’ weapons,” Kelsey said. “It was a collection of reports from our bureaus and from European sources spanning three years and three continents, and I had no concrete conclusions—I thought my office should start an analysis and try to come up with some definite links. I thought the report got circular-filed.”

“Obviously after Houston, folks noticed.”

Just then she noticed the warehouse door opening, and several security officers taking positions inside and out. “I should find out soon—someone’s arriving. Talk to you later.”

“Break a leg.”

Kelsey closed her phone, then straightened her shoulders as three dark stretch limousines approached. The warehouse doors closed, with guards both inside and out. The limos pulled over to Kelsey…and she was at first surprised, then shocked, at the figures that stepped out of those cars: the director of the FBI, JeffreyF. Lemke, from the first; Secretary of Homeland Security, Donna Calhoun, from the second; and the President’s National Security Adviser, Robert Chamberlain, from the third.

“Kelsey, good to see you again,” Director Lemke said, holding out his hand. She shook hands. Although she worked at FBI headquarters in Washington, she’d attended just a few meetings with the director and maybe said six words to him in two and a half years. Jeffrey Lemke was a former FBI agent turned federal prosecutor and politician, first as a state attorney general and then as a two-term congressman from Oklahoma before being appointed FBI director. Kelsey liked him and thought he was an effective director, although he looked and spoke more like a politician than an FBI agent—which was probably a good thing.

Lemke turned and motioned beside him. “Secretary Calhoun, I’d like to introduce Special Agent Kelsey DeLaine, deputy director of our intelligence office in Washington and one of our best analysts. Agent DeLaine, Secretary of Homeland Security Calhoun.”

“Nice to see you again, Madam Secretary,” Kelsey said. “We met about two months ago when I briefed you and your staff on my report on backpack nuclear devices.” The pain on Donna Calhoun’s face, which Kelsey remembered seeing in a press conference on TV just last night and was obviously still with her, deepened to a look of stony agony. Kelsey meant her remark to make the secretary feel more comfortable with her, but she saw that it only made her sadder. Calhoun nodded in greeting but said nothing and stepped away to speak with Chamberlain.

“Sorry about that, sir. I wasn’t thinking. I remember she lost some family in Houston.”

“Don’t try to make polite chitchat here, DeLaine,” Lemke said pointedly. “This is not a damned cocktail party.”

“Yes, sir.” She was not accustomed to being admonished like that, even by the director, especially after recognizing her gaff and apologizing for it, but she tried not to let her indignation show. “Can you tell me what is going on?”

“We’ll all find out together,” the FBI director responded woodenly. The military officers remained apart from the civilians, talking between themselves at first and then with Chamberlain as he approached.

Kelsey found it odd that the lone guy by the Humvee had stayed by himself as all this brass arrived, so when curiosity finally overcame her, she excused herself from Lemke and stepped over to him. The guy didn’t look like a GI at all: his hair was rumpled and a bit longer than the other military guys in the hangar wore theirs; his boots looked as if they hadn’t been polished in eons; and he had a slight stubble as if he hadn’t shaved in a couple days. He was wearing crisp, new-looking military fatigues but there was no rank or insignia on them—they were obviously borrowed or just recently purchased. A very attractive dark-haired woman in a green olive drab T-shirt and black fatigue trousers was sitting behind the wheel with a headset on—she looked more military than the guy did, but she didn’t seem military. Neither of them displayed any ID. “Excuse me,” she said. “I saw you over here all by yourself and thought I’d introduce myself. I’m Kelsey…”

“Special Agent Kelsey DeLaine, deputy director of intelligence, FBI, Washington,” the officer said. “I’m Major Jason Richter, ITB, Army Research Lab, Fort Polk, Louisiana.”

“You’re in the army?” Kelsey asked, glancing up at his unkempt hair.

“We’ve had a long couple of days,” Richter said a little sheepishly. “This is Dr. Ariadna Vega, assistant director.”

“ITB?”

“Infantry Transformation BattleLab. We try to think of ways to make infantry soldiers more lethal.”

“Sounds interesting—and a little scary.” She extended a hand, and he shook it. He seemed a little nervous—his hand was cold and clammy, and there was a slight sheen of perspiration on his upper lip. His handshake matched his appearance—he seemed more like a computer nerd than an army officer. But in the intelligence field she learned that very often appearances were deceiving. He would look a lot cuter, she decided, if he weren’t wearing those geeky glasses. She shook hands with Vega as well. “Nice to meet you. How do you know who I am?”