Hack, page 5
In addition to OmniSoft, Trident is home to a number of technology companies that conduct highly sensitive work for some of the nation’s top spy and counterintelligence agencies.
The southeast Washington office park has been the target of protests by privacy and anti-government groups in the past, and those groups, along with some militia-style organizations, are currently drawing the attention of authorities, sources said.
No one has yet claimed responsibility for the blast, and investigators have all but ruled out foreign involvement, sources said.
The four victims who died as a result of injuries they sustained in the explosion were described as a 42-year-old software developer, a 33-year-old office manager, a 62-year-old security guard, and a 44-year-old landscaper. Their identities were being withheld pending notification of next of kin, a hospital spokeswoman said.
Chapter 11
Two Days Earlier, Trident Office Park
On the afternoon of the explosion, Cal Walker pulled into Trident’s driveway and noticed the rickety van with the lopsided business signs exiting the office park and turning south toward the interstate. It had been years since Walker had worked for the National Security Agency and CIA as an analyst, but his spy training had never completely abandoned him, and, out of old habits, he would unconsciously make mental notes of seemingly small inconsistencies in his surroundings.
Take the van, for instance. It looked ordinary enough, the type of vehicle any repairman might drive, but Walker wondered why the van’s signs didn’t have any contact information. There wasn’t a phone number, email, or website address. Just the name: “Washington Service & Repair.” That was odd. And what was it doing in the office park on a Sunday, when most businesses were closed and the place nearly deserted?
Indeed, Walker himself would not have been there had he not received a message from an unidentified caller promising to provide him with damaging evidence against the federal government to use in his upcoming trial.
The readout on his answering machine had shown the call was coming from a blocked number, but he had hacked the phone company and was able to retrieve the caller’s number. It was from a cell phone. He scribbled down the number and stuck it in his wallet. He’d try to track down the phone’s owner later when he had time but suspected it was probably a burner phone.
Walker had become used to these anonymous promises over the years, and, ninety-nine times out of a hundred they turned out to be dead ends, more likely than not ploys by someone trying to enlist Walker in their own fight against the government, or an around-the-bend conspiracy nut who wanted to bounce their ideas off Walker. And, ninety-nine times out of a hundred the tipsters were men, but this time, it was a woman who had left a message on his answering machine, and for that reason, he was more hopeful the caller might actually possess some useful information.
The unidentified caller said she’d meet Walker at his Trident office at six p.m. Walker had some work he needed to catch up on, so he arrived early on Sunday, at four thirty, and that’s when he spotted the two men in the van leaving the office park.
Walker wrapped up his work by five thirty, closed down his laptop, and made a few handwritten notes in preparation for the meeting. He decided to brew a pot of coffee and ice some drinks in the hope the discussion turned productive. He didn’t have any snacks in the office to offer the visitor since he’d been trying to lose weight. His battle with the government had taken its toll and had drained Walker financially, emotionally, and physically. He had easily packed on an extra twenty pounds, and it showed noticeably on his five-foot-nine frame.
He fished two dusty bottles of sparkling water out from under the sink in the break room and filled the coffee machine reservoir with tap water. He opened the cupboard above the refrigerator to retrieve the coffee, but the shelf was empty. Damn. He could offer his guest tea, but he only had a couple stale Earl Grey pouches in a drawer, and he really could use the caffeine himself.
He glanced at the clock: 5:40. If he hustled, he could make it to the small country store down the road and back again in time. He scribbled a quick note and tacked it to the door. “Went out for coffee. Will be back 6-ish” and signed it “Cal.” He cursed when he got stuck behind a church bus on his way to the store and realized he’d be late for his appointment.
Walker hurried out of the store and into the wintertime darkness and a light drizzle with a can of Folgers Coffee, a pint of half-and-half, a six-pack of diet soda, and some low-fat snacks.
He was backing out of his parking spot when he heard the explosion and saw the flash over the office park. Walker wheeled his Prius around and spun out of the store’s lot, heading away from Trident as fast as his little hybrid car would take him.
______________
Walker exited Maryland State Route 5 at Trinity Church Road and pulled into the gravel parking lot of a little boatyard where he moored his Catalina 375 sailboat. He had made the drive from DC in just under three hours, a trip that normally took two hours and change even in heavy traffic, but he drove well under the speed limit for most of the journey to avoid attracting attention and to milk every drop of power possible from his rapidly dwindling Prius battery. Walker had planned to plug the car in Sunday night, as was his habit, and have it fully charged for the workweek Monday morning. Now he was praying he could make it to a recharging station before the battery pack went completely dead and left him hoping the fumes in the reserve gas tank were enough to keep him from getting stranded.
On the drive down, Walker had anxiously flipped back and forth between radio stations, hoping to catch reports about the explosion. So far, details were skimpy—a dozen or so victims transported and admitted to Georgetown University Hospital for treatment and at least one office building—Building 8—totally destroyed by the blast, the building that had housed OmniSoft Corporation.
Initial reports claimed the blast was the result of a gas pipeline leak, but Walker wasn’t buying it. He was convinced he had been intentionally lured to his office and that the explosion was meant for him. It was only by sheer luck that he had avoided being at his desk when the building came down.
He saw reporter Nik Byron’s calls come in while he drove south out of the nation’s capital but let them go to voice mail. He debated whether he should pick up, but decided it would be safer, in the near term, if people didn’t know his whereabouts, let alone if he were dead or alive. It would take days, if not weeks, to clear the rubble and discover that Walker was not in the building, nor his car in the underground parking garage. Walker eschewed traditional cell phones and exclusively used burner phones so he couldn’t be tracked, another holdover from his NSA days. He had hacked his home and office phones to forward his calls to the endless supply of burner phones he used.
He avoided going back to his Dupont Circle condominium to pack belongings for the trip and instead drove straight to St. Mary’s on Maryland’s southernmost tip on the western banks of the Chesapeake Bay. Walker had once dated a coed who attended Saint Mary’s College, and he was familiar with the area.
The first thing Walker did after unlocking the boat’s cabin was to shave the grizzly hipster beard that had taken him six months to grow. Walker was anything but hip, but he was a geek, and inevitably, nearly every story written about him and OmniSoft’s skirmish with the government either had a picture with him and the full beard or mentioned it in passing. It had become his trademark.
Shorn of the chestnut facial hair, Walker applied several coats of bronzer to his milky skin to give him a weathered appearance. Next, he cut and dyed his brown hair a distinguished silver and strung a pair of reading glasses around his neck. He now looked more like a bookish live-aboard sailor and less like Ulysses S. Grant. He vowed to drop fifteen pounds as soon as possible to complete the makeover.
It was only a few years earlier that Walker had bought the secondhand sloop and stashed it in the St. Mary’s boatyard for just such an occasion. He had stocked the boat with a month’s provisions, clothing, a few disguises, $10,000 in cash, passports, and outfitted it with top-of-the-line navigation gear, Wi-Fi, dozens of burner phones, calling cards, backup computer equipment, and files.
The location offered him a number of escape routes—he could lie low in St. Mary’s, sail up and down the Chesapeake Bay, or head east to open water and the Atlantic Ocean and then north to Canada or south to the Florida Keys.
For the time being, Walker would remain in St. Mary’s, working on the boat, waiting, watching, and listening. And when he felt the time was right, he’d resurface.
Chapter 12
December 21, Georgetown
Samantha Whyte met Nik for drinks at Nora’s, a charming café tucked away on a side street off Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown. Sam had picked the location after rejecting Nik’s first two suggestions—the Stagecoach Inn in Arlington and Fifteen Minutes in Adams Morgan.
“Loved those places,” she told Nik when he called the following week as promised, “when I was in college.”
The bar at Nora’s was intimate, elegant, quiet, and tastefully adorned with garlands for the holidays. A restored tin ceiling hung overhead, and the floor was covered in a honeycomb-patterned tile. The plastered walls were covered with dozens of black-and-white photos of Scottish terriers in all shapes and sizes staring down at the patrons. The bartender—his name tag read “Charles”—gave Nik a stiff-necked sideways glance when he called him Charlie and asked for a longneck Budweiser. After debating several drink options, Sam ordered a vodka martini. When the drinks arrived, Charles started to pour Nik’s beer into a fluted glass when Nik stopped him with a wave of his hand, pushed the glass aside, and picked up the bottle and took a long pull.
“Thanks, Charles,” Sam said and gave Nik a smirk and a shake of the head.
“Cheers,” she said, and she and Nik clinked glasses.
“Cheers,” Nik said, “to burying the hatchet.”
“To burying the hatchet,” Sam agreed, and they clinked glasses again.
When Nik had called Sam and suggested they get together for a drink, he informed her that he had discovered how the Post had gotten wind of Newshound’s county bid-rigging story. Turns out, the clerk in the county commissioner’s office who had handled Nik’s documents request had leaked it to a Post reporter.
“Place is a sieve, and I owe you an apology,” Nik had told her during the call.
“Well, whaddya know, it wasn’t me after all,” Sam had chided. “Apology accepted.”
No sooner had she forgiven him than Nik had asked her out for a drink. Sam had halfway anticipated the invitation when she saw Nik’s number pop up on her caller ID. She had already decided she’d accept if he asked. It was late in the year, and it wasn’t as if her calendar was overflowing with invitations.
“But it’s not a date,” she had insisted.
“Fine. Call it whatever you like,” Nik said.
“Besides,” Sam had added, “I’ve been meaning to call you. There’s some new information Sheriff Korum received that he asked me to pass along to you.” Sam wouldn’t say what the information was over the phone but promised to share it with Nik when they met.
“So, do you have big plans for the holidays?” Nik asked after the toasts, resisting the impulse to talk shop right away.
Sam appreciated his stab at chitchat and gave him a quick smile as she pushed a pair of red Tom Fords to the top of her head. Nik had not seen her wearing glasses before. They had the dual effect of making her look smart and sexy at the same time.
“I’ll see some friends, visit family, catch up on some rest, read the new John Grisham novel. Guy’s a machine,” she said. “You?”
“A quick trip to see the family, drink eggnog, eat too much turkey. Looking forward to seeing the sibs.”
“Brothers and sisters?”
“Yeah, one each. I’m the oldest of three. You?”
“Just my older sister and me. What about Mrs. Byron?”
“My mother?”
“Your wife.”
“My ex-wife, Maggie?”
“Right. You guys get together over the holidays?”
“If that’s your way of asking if we have kids, the answer is no, we do not. No little Byrons running around, at least not that I’m aware of.”
“So does she still live in the Midwest?”
“No. She’s here.”
“In Nora’s?” Sam asked, looking around.
“No, DC. By sheer coincidence, she got transferred to Washington around the same time I moved out here. She works for the US Attorney’s office.”
“How . . .” Several thoughts crossed Sam’s mind—convenient, manipulative, unfortunate. She settled on “interesting.”
“Believe me, I know. So far, we’ve avoided any head-on collisions, though I did see her the other day in Adams Morgan walking arm in arm with this block of granite who looked like he could play middle linebacker for the Chicago Bears. She was dwarfed by him, and I wouldn’t even have recognized her had I not heard her voice. That you don’t forget,” Nik said without any trace of malice.
“Some women like men with a little more meat on their bones,” Sam said.
“Apparently, and my New Year’s resolution is to hit the gym more often,” Nik said, flexing his biceps.
“You might want to consider a lifetime membership,” Sam teased.
It was chilly in the bar when they first arrived, as customers and staff shuttled in and out a side entrance to smoke and vape, letting in microbursts of frigid air each time the door swung open. Sam’s cheeks and the tip of her nose were raspberry red from her walk to the restaurant, and she had remained bundled up in her coat.
Charles lit a fire in the fireplace, and the bar’s small interior quickly turned toasty. Sam peeled off her coat and draped it over a barstool, revealing a black cashmere crewneck sweater, caramel-colored slacks, a jewel-encrusted belt cinched tightly around her waist, with black knee-high boots. Sam had a light sandy-colored complexion with a band of freckles running across the bridge of her nose and under her eyes. Her shoulder-length strawberry-blonde hair was tucked behind her ears, and the glow from the fireplace lit up her pale-blue eyes.
“What are you doing for New Year’s Eve?” Nik asked casually.
Sam was ready for that question, too, but she wanted to be careful how she answered. She didn’t want to give Nik the impression she was either desperate or too available, but she also didn’t want to be rude. She was mulling over her response when Nik volunteered, “Can’t stand it, personally. It’s for amateurs. I agreed to work.”
“Oh,” Sam said, equally relieved and miffed by his response. She didn’t have any plans, but told Nik, “I’m still trying to decide. I’ve got a couple options.” If she had been totally honest, she would have told Nik she’d probably order Chinese, watch When Harry Met Sally or Sleepless in Seattle, and be in bed before midnight.
“Good,” he said, sounding genuinely pleased for her. “Hey, Charlie,” Nik shouted to the barkeep, “how about another round of drinks, and no need to pour my beer this time.”
The bartender had his back to the couple, but Sam could see his shoulders tense when Nik called him Charlie again. Sam wondered if Nik was intentionally provoking their server or if he was truly so—what was the word she was searching for—Midwestern? If he was being genuine, it was charming in an unadorned sort of way. If it was a shtick, it would wear thin pretty quickly. For the time being, she’d give him the benefit of the doubt.
“So,” Nik asked, propping an elbow on the bar and resting his chin in his palm, “what’s your story?”
“Whatever do you mean?” Sam asked.
“Well, I’d hardly call you a typical civil servant. Not often you come across a reporter who’s jumped ship to work in law enforcement.”
This was true. Sam had started her reporting career at a small daily newspaper on Maryland’s Eastern Shore after graduating from Georgetown. After a year, she took a job in Annapolis covering state politics, and three years later, the Washington Post came calling with an offer to cover the Hill.
She had earned a reputation as a tough but fair reporter from both sides of the aisle, and it wasn’t long before she was appearing on cable news outlets for her numerous scoops. She loved politics and had chosen Georgetown specifically to pursue a career in public affairs or in the foreign services, but she had gotten bit by the journalism bug when she was a sophomore and spent the next three years practically living at the campus newspaper offices.
After two years of covering the Hill, Sam was offered the White House beat, a plum job, but before she could start, she and fellow reporter Gregg Robbins needed to wrap up an investigation they were conducting into foreign campaign contributions to Lisa Cunningham, the second-ranking member of the House and chair of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Robbins and Sam had been digging into the story on and off for eight months, and on one particularly long evening near the conclusion of their investigation, they had wound up in bed together. It might have been inevitable, but it was nonetheless complicated.
Sam was single, but Robbins was married to another Post reporter, although recently separated. Their secret affair was about two months old when they chartered a turboprop plane to Cunningham’s vacation home off the coast of Georgia to confront her with their findings.
They had light cocktails on the plane and arrived at the small airport that served Sea Island a little after four p.m. on a Friday afternoon. The plan was to meet a source, grab an early dinner, and prep for their nine a.m. interview the next morning with Congresswoman Cunningham.
