Executive Treason (11 page)

“Schedules. Strategies. Secrets.”

The president locked onto the eyes that were scrutinizing him. It was a look that Robert Mulligan would long remember. It was still, serious, and final.

“Mr. Director, Lynn Meyerson was a fine young woman with a bright future. She was a trusted aide with access to the President of the United States. And, as you damn well know, almost everything we talk about in the Oval Office could be considered classified until it’s in the press. Now before you hear another word from me, it’s your turn. What the hell is going on?”

Washington, D.C.

FBI Agent Roy Bessolo parked his customized black Suburban on Columbia Road NW, directly across the street from Meyerson’s apartment. It was his second time up the hill today. His first was a drive-by surveillance run on his own. Now he had his entire team.

Meyerson lived alone a few blocks from Dupont Circle, in a one-bedroom walk-up. Her apartment was on the fourth floor of a century-old five-story brick building on 18th Street in the Adams Morgan neighborhood. Higher priced condos lined the street. Meyerson’s building hadn’t been converted yet.

“There it is,” Bessolo told his passengers. “Right over the video store.”

His team assessed the exterior. Chunks of brick and mortar had fallen away. Workers had tried to patch the facade with plaster, but the structure desperately needed work. Individual air-conditioning units hung from windows, indicating that there was no central HVAC.

“I’ve got the specs.” Earlier, Bessolo pulled the name of the owner, the money he owed on the building, and information on all the occupants. They were 20-something students: some from Georgetown and GW, a few of the “bridge and tunnel crowd” from the University of Maryland, a collection of junior hill staff, and some young attorneys. Bessolo ordered up more detailed information on each of the tenants, including what they paid in rent, their personal debt, and whether they had any record. Meyerson’s monthly rent was $1,980. She had no roommate. She’s getting hosed, he thought. Bessolo was the father of a 23-year-old daughter and he worried about such things. It was the only sympathy he’d show for Lynn Meyerson that day.

“We wait here until we have the warrant. Then we move.” Bessolo was pissed. He was ready to go and the fax was still to come. He took the time to review procedure.

Roy Bessolo issued his instructions the way he did everything: military, direct, monotone. And what his voice didn’t say, his appearance did. Marine crew cut. Marine physique. Marine barrel chest. The only “ex” was his active duty status. He was as strong today as he was at the peak of his training.

“Let’s go through this once more.”

The team had already reviewed their assignments, but Bessolo was a stickler for proper procedure.

“Thomas. You start with the head. Tag prescription medications, illegal substances, birth control pills. Everything. Then you’ve got the subject’s bedroom. All the drawers. What’s visible and what’s not. Hidden compartments. Everywhere.”

“Everything, everywhere,” said Beth Thomas, one of the FBI’s brightest criminologists, and the only woman in the bureau to hold a PhD in the subject.

“Shik, you’re in the kitchen and living room. Drawers, cabinets, bookcases, desk. Over, under, around, and through.”

“Behind?” asked the agent.

“Behind,” Bessolo answered. “Anything outside the bedroom is yours.” Bessolo knew his man would not miss a square inch. Agent Dan Shikiar was the team’s most detail-oriented agent.

“And Gimbrone, get into her computer fast but carefully. Watch out for any embedded viruses that could be set as traps. I need to see what’s in there. Pull up everything on the subject’s computer. Read, copy, report. In-boxes and outgoing.”

“Yes, sir,” the third member of the team acknowledged. Like the others, Mark Gimbrone was an expert. His discipline: hacking and cracking.

“Thirty minutes, people. I want a continuous narrative. I’ll be monitoring each of you.” The team’s microphones were all fed to distinct digital tracks in the black, windowless van. “I want to know that this woman is cleaner than a baby’s butt.” He left out the important fact that she was no longer alive; a calculated deceit in order not to color their thinking. “Am I clear?”

He got the obligatory affirmation he sought. “One bit of intel for you, the rest you fill in for me: Our subject works for Uncle Sam. Find me anything that compromises her. Or give me your assurance she’s on the home team.”

The fax machine started to print out the court authorization. Bessolo grabbed the sheet when it finished printing. “The United States District Court for the District of Columbia says one, two, three—green light!”

One by one, the team exited the tricked-out van parked in front of a bank. Beth Thomas was the last to leave. She ducked back in when the others were out of earshot.

Bessolo shot her a confused look. “Agent Thomas?”

“Just a question, sir. Off the record?”

At first, Bessolo showed annoyance. But since he openly encouraged his team to speak their mind, he acquiesced. He reached over and paused her discreet audio channel on the computer recording. “Two minutes.”

“Less,” she began. “You always told me to keep my radar up. Well, my radar’s up. Warrant aside, are we examining a crime scene or spying on a citizen?”

“We have an assignment. That’s all you need to know.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nothing else.”

She knew he lied very, very well.

“Same answer on the record, Roy?” she asked using her boss’s first name.

“Agent, do your job. And don’t ignore anything. You go in with an empty canvas and paint me a fucking Rembrandt.”

He pointed the computer mouse at the record icon and left-clicked. The conversation was over.

“Scott…”

The phone call caught him while he was walking into the Pentagon. Recognizing the voice, he stopped just shy of security and returned outside. It was Louise Swingle, the vice president’s secretary. She kept him plugged into relevant administration issues. Morgan Taylor insisted on it, and the new president had agreed. Roarke’s access to breaking information was critical.

The conversations were always lighthearted and cryptic.

“What’s up?”

“Where are you?”

“About to see Penny.” Swingle knew all about Captain Penny Walker. She was one of Roarke’s deep contacts inside the Pentagon and an old girlfriend.

“Are we conducting business today?” she asked mockingly.

“Nothing but.”

Roarke wanted to see if Penny could run a search on military veterans who might overlap one or more aspects of Depp’s profile. She was a master detective assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency, who did all of her work on one of the Pentagon’s most interconnected computers.

“But if you need me now…” he began.

“No, just wanted to know if you heard the rumors?”

“Rumors? Nothing beyond the hustle out of L.A. a few days ago.”

Her sudden switch to business clearly suggested this wasn’t a conversation to continue on an open line.

“Why don’t you hit home later.” Home was the vice president’s office. “There’s something else.”

Louise Swingle never said anything that didn’t have meaning.

“You sure this can wait?” he asked.

“Yes, but don’t take all day. Bye-bye.”

With that he hung up and proceeded to security. Even his Secret Service ID didn’t earn him a quick pass. Not these days.

“Okay, Penny, do your stuff,” Roarke said after the preliminary explanation.

Penny was a slender, 5′6″ blonde beauty. Her looks always made men take notice; Roarke had. But her uniform usually made them stop and think twice. Roarke hadn’t. She was a U.S. Army captain assigned to intelligence. Two years earlier they had had a whirlwind relationship, all sex and no romance. At the time, it was what both were aching for. However, Penny understood that Roarke needed more than she would ever give him. That’s why she was happy he’d found Katie Kessler.

Walker finished typing. “Anything else you can think of?”

Roarke looked over her shoulder at the parameters he provided for her search: Caucasian. Ex-military. Marksman. Age range 28-40. Nothing more than possibilities. She also included approximate height and weight variables, and a composite picture created by Touch Parsons.

“Will the computer ignore the picture if it comes up with positives on these assumptions alone?”

“If that’s what you’d like.” She altered her typed prompts. “You know how I like to make you happy.” She looked back and blew Roarke a kiss.

“Then add in theatrical makeup as another parameter.”

“Geez, you’re easy these days,” she cooed. “She must be very, very good.”

“She is,” Roarke said smiling. “And thank you.”

Walker sighed. “Oh, what could have been.” She turned back to the keyboard. “Well, sweetheart, since I struck out with you, at least let’s see if I can come up with Mister Wrong.”

Antiguilla

The sun beat down on the pristine white sand at Antiguilla’s Cap Juluca resort. The British West Indies facility is tucked away on a private self-contained enclave, spread along two miles of the Caribbean coast. Singles and couples alike flock to the Moorish villas, feasting in the five-star restaurants, working halfheartedly in the fitness center, diving, surfing, water skiing, sailing, or finding other more personally gratifying indoor sports.

Some of the vacationers were sprawled out, engrossed in paperback editions of Tom Clancy, Michael Palmer, Vince Flynn, and Dan or Dale Brown books. It might be another month until the next great beach reads were due, but here in paradise it was perpetually July.

One strikingly beautiful woman sitting on a straw mat spotted a snorkeler emerging from the 85-degree water. She was awestruck by his 6-foot-plus frame, a magnificent physique, his blonde locks, hairless body, and his drop-dead good looks.

She wondered what he did. He was obviously successful. Lawyer. No. Maybe a professional athlete. A quarterback. She wished she knew sports better. He could be anything, she thought.

Part of her evaluation was right. He was successful and very athletic. In fact, a few nights before, he’d been a jogger. But after catching a 10 P.M. plane from LAX to Miami, and then a connecting flight to Antiguilla, he became someone else entirely.

If the woman, wearing only a bikini bottom, were lucky, she’d never discover what he actually did for a living.

Now, with his eyes fully adjusted to the glare, he saw her. He read her unmistakable interest from twenty yards away. He laughed to himself. A redhead. Imagine that.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hello,” she replied with a flirtatious smile. She lowered her eyes: a coy signal that he could do the same.

When she looked up again, the woman noted that he had taken her cue and found what she had invited him to see. Soon the stunning redhead would hear that this great catch out of the sea was a shark. He’d even have a convincing conversation with her about his career as a lawyer, or rather the identity that he’d stolen. Most importantly, over the next week, he’d show her a very good time. All on his dime. After all, money wasn’t a problem.

Washington, D.C.

Shik used his small lock pick to open Meyerson’s 800-square-foot apartment.

“We’re in,” he said for the recording. “Let’s get to it.”

The team split up according to assignments, each making instant value judgments about the woman and her life.

Shik began in the kitchen. “Small. Old appliances. Grease caked in layers on the oven.” His overall assessment: “Not a cook.” He found her checkbook in a shoebox, along with a stack of bills. She had a balance of $2,438.32 that would have to be checked with the bank. But on first blush it appeared she lived hand-to-mouth, month-to-month. He radioed in his observation.

Beth Thomas went straight for the bathroom. To a woman, the bathroom said a lot. This is where the FBI agent would formulate the personal side of the subject. The bathtub caught her eye. “We have a guilty pleasure here or a bad back. Whirlpool Spa connected to her tub.” Her search of the medicine cabinet produced a bottle of a muscle relaxer. “Five mg Flexeril. Vicodin, too. Ten mg. It’s a back issue.” There were also decongestants. “Allergies,” Thomas continued reporting. She noted condoms and essentials from a Bobbi Brown makeup kit. Most of the things were missing. “The medicine cabinet doesn’t have everything I’d expect. Subject is likely away.”

Bessolo radioed up. “Any Estee Lauder?”

She looked again. “No. Why?” Bessolo didn’t volunteer an answer.

Shik had his screwdriver out, and removed the plates on each of the wall sockets. Wearing a light on his cap, he peered inside each one. Next he checked the light fixtures. From there he went to the living room, examining the telephone and fax machine. He set up a small black box next to them. The onboard LEDs remained green. No bugs or wireless cameras. “Living room is clean.” He followed the same routine in each of the other rooms.

Beth Thomas ignored him when he came into the bedroom. She was busy with her own analysis. “Walls patched up. Hardwood floors worn, but recently polished. I’d say she cares about her bedroom, but doesn’t have money to work with. Assumption: She needs more money, or is afraid to spend what she has.” Her walls were painted in a light blue, the ceiling in white. She’d hung a poster depicting Wellesley College in its fall splendor, and tacked on a cork board, a collection of pictures that she’d taken with government officials and international leaders. So far, these were the most interesting finds.

“Photographs suggest that subject may work for the U.S. of A. With access.” Beth studied the photographs. Senators, congressman, the Ambassador to Israel. Even President Lamden. “High up.” No casual pictures. No single pictures of boyfriends.

Bessolo listened to the commentary in the van. He tapped his fingers to a tune he quietly hummed. His team members, blind from the beginning, were making solid observations. But what would they find that he didn’t already know?

Shik returned to the living room after completing his electronics sweep. Now he could concentrate on the physical information. “Personal touches everywhere.” He examined some tabletop sculptures. “Woman is an artist. Signed and dated work. Recent.” He remembered seeing a poster in the bedroom. “Likely college art classes. Living room decorated artfully. Flea market finds on the tables. Lamps, vases, mobiles, all reworked, distressed, and displayed. She probably watches the junk-to-funk shows on HGTV and DIY. Her cable company can confirm viewing habits. Functional, inexpensive, out-of-the box Ikea furniture. A few throw rugs to pull the space together. Artistic hand. Creative,” he said on mic. “Boxes in the living room.” He looked around. “I’d say about a dozen.” He opened one. “College books. She’s still moving in. Betcha she’s too busy at work to get this done.” The mainly empty shelves reinforced the point. The only volumes in use were history books, non-fiction and fiction, de Tocqueville to Vidal. “History buff. American history.” He examined the pages. “Individual words highlighted in yellow marker.”

Bessolo heard the comment. What words? He made a mental note to examine the book himself. Codes are often developed through words in a book. Both sender and receiver work from the same source to communicate. A message?

Beth still worked the bedroom. “Subject’s bed faces the windows. Morning sun. Sheer drapes. Very little privacy, but not much of a view from the condo across the street. Going to check out the closet now.”

Meyerson’s closet was another thing entirely. There simply wasn’t enough room for a woman’s clothes. Beth looked at everything, moving each item carefully. Like the other members of Bessolo’s team, she wore latex gloves.

The closet overflowed with any number of requisite black and gray pantsuits, two conservative knee-length black business skirts, two black cocktail dresses, one mid-knee skirt, a collection of blouses and sweaters and basic athletic clothing. She was about Beth’s size, in good shape, except for her back problem. But the jogging shoes suggested she ran to keep fit. “Nice taste. Very presentable. Professional, moderately conservative. Jogs or walks for exercise. Damn, it’s cramped in here.” She felt a twinge of sympathy, then looked for the natural space to store more clothes. Thomas found it. “There’s more under her bed.”

Meanwhile, Gimbrone followed the wiring in the living room, a few feet from Shik. “Flat-screen TV, hooked up to cable. Multiple phone lines.” He crossed over to the bay window, where Lynn had her desktop. He checked the hookup. “Cable modem to a 3-year-old Dell 4600C. MP3 player patched into the system’s speakers.” He powered up and immediately discovered a wall. “Shit. Password protected.” He grimaced. “Sorry about that, boss.”

Bessolo didn’t worry. In his opinion, just a temporary obstacle.

“Now the bed,” Thomas explained. “Queen.” She felt the springs. “Sleeps on the right side. Alone.” The information in the pictures, the clothing in her closet, and the college poster gave her enough intel to make an educated guess. “I’d say we’ve got a young Congressional aide or government staffer—maybe working for someone up the food chain. Works all the time,” she felt the bed again, “and doesn’t have a steady boyfriend.” Beth knew the feeling.

Right again, Bessolo thought from across the street.

Slowly and surely, Bessolo’s squad compiled an accurate snapshot of Lynn Meyerson. Now it was time to see if they’d find any blemishes in the picture. He counted on it.

Mossad Headquarters
Tel Aviv, Israel

“Then tell me, Ira. You’ve read the communiqués. Travel plans? Fleet locations? Pending legislation? Why aren’t I celebrating?”

Wurlin smiled. He was quite prepared to volunteer his opinion. Walk-ins were his specialty. They always had a personal reason for offering themselves up. Sometimes it was their urge as a Jew to connect with Israel; other times, an individual epiphany brought on by a news story, a teacher, or a book. Something as simple as that. Loyalties also swung because of deaths of loved ones. There were often two other reasons: money, or the sheer, addictive lure of living on the edge.

“I have been thinking about it. Chuntul shows no level of sophisticated technical expertise here. Detail is lacking. And as we both suspected, the information is publicly available if you know where to look. These are simply teasers. Dainty bites to entice us, to suggest how close she is to greater information.”

“In such an open manner?”

Wurlin laughed. “Our own website invites people to e-mail us to become agents.” The Mossad discovered that even they needed to find new ways to recruit.

“So, where does Chantul work?”

“State Department. A key senator. Maybe somewhere in the White House.”

This piqued Schecter’s interest. He hadn’t considered that. It had been a few years since they had someone close to an American president.

“But you say there’s no real level of intelligence.”

“No. Not yet.”

“No names?”

“Just what you’ve seen, Jacob,” Wurlin replied. “References to Papa Bear, Baby Bear. Things like that. And what we’ve already discussed. Legislation that could have an impact on us.”

Schecter pursed his lips. “Money or conscience, Ira?” He then phrased it differently. “Will we get a bill?”

“Can’t say yet.”

“Create a short list of likely candidates,” the Mossad Chief ordered.

“Already on it.”

“Good. I want to know who this Chantul is. I still have a bad feeling about this. Nothing you’ve presented is making it go away.”

Washington, D.C.

Gimbrone peered at the 17-inch computer screen. He’d already tried the passwords most used by people—the ones that required little or no thinking. 1-2-3-4-5, A-B-C-D-E. The third one worked. 1-1-1-1-1. Once in, he called up the most recent word docs—all innocuous files. Then he scanned through hundreds of cookies recorded in Windows Explorer. “She shops online,” he reported to his recording in the van. “Some travel destinations checked out: France, Italy, Israel. No porn sites.”

Now to her Internet account. She subscribed to Comcast. He tried the winning password again. It didn’t work. Nor did any of the other likely choices. He tried combinations of birthdays, family names, and other obvious combinations.

“Anyone have any ideas? I’m stuck,” Mark Gimbrone admitted. He turned to the team because that’s what Bessolo had taught them. Individually, they were all highly trained agents, but they were part of a bigger team. They knew when to ask for help.

Certainly another court order could get them into her account through the provider. But Bessolo wanted information now.

Bessolo, monitoring the conversation over the wireless, radioed back. “Come on people. We might have company soon.”

Pictures
, Beth Thomas thought as she walked into the living room. Having examined her most intimate apparel, she was probably developing the strongest sense of their subject. “Hey, anyone seen any photo albums? Might be something in one.”

“Don’t know. Try the boxes,” Shik offered.

It took Thomas a few minutes to find two albums filled with laminated pages. “Let’s see what these tell us, missy,” Beth softly said to herself.

The FBI agent leafed through the pages, going back in time through internships, college, high school, and earlier. That’s when she spotted it: A photograph of a then-12-year-old girl holding an apricot toy poodle. Her allergies! Of course she’d have a poodle or another non-allergic dog as a pet. Not a cat or a long-haired dog.

Now for a name. She went to another photo album. On the third page she found the teenager eating a piece of cake. She looked closer. There was the dog: a puppy. Frosting was smeared over its muzzle. She studied the photo more. A number was visible on the cake. They were celebrating the dog’s first birthday! One more look.

Beth swung her backpack around and off her shoulder and removed a plastic kit containing a magnifying glass.

The name on the cake, a blur to her unaided eyes, became clearly visible.

“Try Buckets,” she called out.

“What?”

“Buckets. B-U-C-K-E-T-S.”

“What the hell is that?” asked Gimbrone.

“A password, you idiot!”

“Buckets?”

“Buckets,” Thomas repeated.

Seven letters later, Gimbrone was into his subject’s e-mail account. “Well what do you know,” he said under his breath. “Nice going, Thomas. How’d you pull this one out of the hat?”

Thomas smiled. “Woman’s intuition,” she slyly said. But it was nothing of the kind. One of the leading passwords, and easiest to remember, is the name of a first pet. That’s what credit cards, bank accounts, and online services even recommend. Thomas also knew the old joke about porn stars taking the name of their first pet and the street where they grew up to come up with an exotic stage name.

“Son of a gun,” was all that the computer wiz offered in return.

The criminologist flashed a satisfied smile and joined Gimbrone at the computer. A minute later, after scanning a list of deleted e-mail, Beth tapped the screen. “There. What’s that?”

Gimbrone opened a recent outgoing mail and read through it. “Uh-oh.”

Bessolo keyed his mike. “I heard that. Speak to me.”

Gimbrone reached in his backpack for a backup Zip drive.

Bessolo called again. “What’s going on, people?”

“Going to back up the hard drive before I look any further,” Gimbrone explained. He plugged in his accessory, but before he left the Internet, he decided to read the contents of the e-mail again.

Bessolo was getting annoyed. “Gimbrone!” he said in a raised voice.

“What did you find?”

“Sir, why don’t you lock up and come on upstairs. You’re going to want to see this.”