ROGUESTATE, page 24
Rita remained frozen as Feldman raced through the public relations problems.
Schaeffer kept rolling like Patton’s Third Army. “You! What are you waiting for? I told you to release my clients.”
Rita set down her pen and notebook.
“Mister Schaeffer these men are—”
“These men are to be freed right now!” demanded Schaeffer. He produced one his many cell phones and thumbed through the directory to the private number for the judge who issued the order.
“They’re criminals!” blurted Rita.
Schaeffer’s thumb hovered above the TALK key as he queried, “Do you want to explain to a Federal judge as to why you’re ignoring his order?”
“I’ll need to check…” babbled Feldman.
“You are refusing,” declared Mark as he hit the TALK button. He shook his head sadly. “I’m glad it’s you who is going to explain to the judge about this. He was very unhappy to miss his tee time.” Mark handed the phone to Feldman apprehensively.
Feldman stared at the digital display as the call connected. It might have been a bomb exploding in his hand as he lifted the phone to ear.
“What’s the judge’s name?” he asked.
“Judge Stillwell, and he’s a mean one,” warned Mark.
Harper’s mask slipped for an instant as he gained a new appreciation for hislawyer.
Harvey assumed a smug, satisfied smirk as he could hear Judge Stillwell shouting on the other end of the line. For the first time since entering the room, Feldman took a seat and his tanned features took on a funeral parlor pallor. Feldman muttered, “Yes judge,” and “No, judge,” several times.
Eventually, Feldman hit the END button and handed the phone back to Schaeffer. He said, “Release them.”
“He didn’t sound too happy,” observed Schaeffer as he pocketed the phone.
Feldman shook his head and Mark continued, “I expect my clients to be erased from the CYCLOPS database, and for this harassment of my clients to end. Otherwise, I’ll have to talk to the judge again.”
Harper rubbed his wrist as the cuff came off. He reached across to Rita Mason’s box and gathered his Glock and Harvey’s Smith & Wesson.
“You can’t take those,” protested Rita.
“Do you want totalk to the judge?” offered Mark.
Rita stared at the cell phone and shook her head.
“You’re free to leave,” announced Feldman grudgingly.
“Well then, we’ll be on our way,” replied Harvey as he got to his feet.
“Yes,” announced Mark, “we need to get going.”
He opened the door leading into the corridor and the elevators leading out of the JEH Building. “We’ll being seeing each other again, Major.”
Harper cast a glance back at Feldman and held his tongue. Harvey landed a heavy hand on Harper’s chest and held him back. Nothing he could say would change the problems between them.
They made an odd trio as Schaeffer grabbed both Harper and Harvey by the arms and moved them towards the elevators. Harper was a two-hundred-ten-pound wall of muscle, and Harvey was the rotund, overweight ex-agent. The one-hundred-fifty-pound Schaeffer, who barely made it to five and half feet, escorted them out of the building.
He marched them past the uniformed security guards to a waiting Suburban. Brian Stillwell was sitting at the wheel and as Mark slammed the door shut he said, “Let’s get out of here.”
Harvey chuckled and said, “Yeah, judge.”
“Aren’t you a little concerned about scamming the Bureau Lieutenant?” asked Harper.
Stillwell shook his head. ,“No Major, during theSAMSON thing, Louis had me create a Federal Judge as a fall-back position in the event we had to issue court orders to get something done.”
“Create?” asked Harvey.
“Yeah, we made one up out of nothing and entered him into the circuit court system. Then we staged a printer with the right kind of paper and seals. We didn’t forge anything. When Feldman checks the order against the circuit court system, he’ll find it properly filed and signed,” explained Stillwell.
“You hacked the Federal Court Systems computer network?” asked Harper incredulously.
“Why not, we hack everything else,” replied Stillwell flippantly.
* * * *
New York City
Conner Fadden secured the window washer platform to the mooring rig. The banded steel cables were wound on two sizable drums bolted in a housing to the roof of the building housing Adrian Bridger’s office. The platform was twelve feet long and three feet wide.
During the past twenty-four hours, Conner had left his surveillance post in the alley curled around an empty Thunderbird bottle. He ventured into Times Square and quickly found a pimp named Harmony, who dealt in flesh, cocaine, and pilfered credit cards. Harmony might have tipped the scales at one hundred forty pounds, but the extra gold he wore around his neck and his full-length fur coat probably added another ten. He called his bodyguard Stoney. Stoney wanted people to think he could play for the New York Giants, but too much food and not enough exercise made him little more than an annoying side of flab.
Conner wound the few twenties he had around a much thicker wad of one-dollar bills and flashed the money at the pimp. It was enough to convince Harmony to move from the glitzy storefront of the twenty-four–hour movie theaters to service entrances for delivery trucks. Harmony led the way between heavy blue dumpsters and ten-foot chainlink fence.
It was a great place to leave a foolish white man.
Conner felt rather than heard the rush of air behind him as Stoney closed the distance between them. Conner squatted, sliding under Stoney’s grappling arms and twisted, delivering a devastating punch to the kidneys. His legs folded and his knees crashed over the hard ground. Conner stomped on the back of Stoney’s neck as he rushed Harmony.
Harmony’s gold chains jingled as he tugged a chrome-plated automatic from the inside of his fur coat. He was used to dealing with strung-out junkies and frightened teenagers from the Midwest. Conner was something else.
He deflected the gun to the side, taking a firm hold around Harmony’s scrawny wrist. It left his free hand open. Conner formed his hand into a C-shape and delivered a crushing throat strike. Harmony’s lungs quit delivering air to Harmony’s underused brain, and he forgot about the gun. Unfortunately, Conner’s entire attention focused on the gun hand as he looped his arm between the elbow and shoulder. Harmony’s elbow joint snapped like a dry tree branch and Harmony would have screamed, but his windpipe was broken and his larynx no longer worked.
Stoney had managed to bring himself to hands and knees. He saw Conner’s booted foot milliseconds before Conner punted his head like a football. Stoney lifted up and crashed down in a heap. He turned back to a twitching Harmony. Conner leaned over the dieing dope dealer and pulled him towards the unconscious Stoney. He dropped the pimp atop his bodyguard. He picked up Harmony’s .32 ACP automatic and stuck it into the side of Stoney’s ear. He fired three quick shots, which were muffled by Harmony’s almost lifeless body.
Conner recovered over four thousand dollars in cash and five credit cards. He pocketed Harmony’s gun and went shopping at an Army/Navy Surplus store. He exchanged his drunkard rags for a set of black BDUs, a black nylon holster that strapped to the inside of his leg, and a balaclava.
He stepped into the window washer platform, and activated the twin motors that paid out the cables. With a jerk, the platform descended down the sheer side of the building. It was a subdued building with heavily tinted windows and a gray, sandstone frame. Against the ambient light scattered from the traffic below and random offices from other buildings, Conner remained invisible and silent. No one heard the twenty horsepower motors over the cars below, and a light wind stole the rest.
Conner stopped the winch outside Bridger’s office. Except for an ornamental lamp on a coffee table, the room was empty and dark. He reached into his tool bag for a roll of duct tape and a diamond-tipped glasscutter. The window was a double pane unit with a half-inch gap between the two panes. Conner ran the cutter and scored a three-by-three-foot square. After running the cutting tool along the same lines twice, he ran two pieces of duct tape along the window to hold the cut piece in place.
He tapped the glass with the handle of the cutting tool and made sure the piece dropped between the two glass panes. He slid the glass piece sideways and started cutting the inner pane of glass. Three minutes later he tapped out the second piece of glass and lowered it to the floor inside Bridger’s office.
Conner clambered into the office and brought his tote bag in behind him. He leaned back out the hole and hit the controls to send the window washer platform back to its mooring at the top of the building. He pulled himself back into the building and retrieved a tube of E-6000 industrial strength glue. The man at the hardware store told him it was an all-purpose glue and would bond glass to glass.
He popped the cap on the glue and laid down a bead over the cut edge. He duct-taped the edges to hold the glass in place while the glue hardened. Conner had a combination of power bars and water bottles to keep him comfortable. It was time to wait for Adrian Bridger—The Fixer.Conner had rid the world of Harmony and Stoney. He intended to finish the job with Adrian Bridger and Damon Layne, before he finally swallowed a bullet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Chechnya,London Telegraph,Nigel Turner, September 12, 2000 –The Chechen rebels demonstrated their continued capability to strike deep into Russian-controlled territory. Major General Anatoly Mikh’s car was shot up on the outskirts of Gudermes. Another Russian flag officer has been added to the casualty list. The attack will prove to be another embarrassment for the Russian military, which has claimed the rebels are defeated and pose no major threat.
New York City
Sunday, November 5, 2000
10:00 A.M. EST
Jonas Benjamin sat inside a white paneled van with one of Louis Edwards’ bodyguards—Mister Jones—and a technician from General George Carnady’s staff at the National Security Agency (NSA). Two days ago, Jonas had been authorized to use aPredator squadron to track Adrian Bridger.
Predatorwas an unmanned aerial vehicle designed to augment precious satellite reconnaissance resources. It has a range of over five hundred miles, and loiter time over target in excess of twenty-four hours. The unit assigned to Jonas had the conventional sensor package consisting of a variable zoom (16-160mm) day camera, a 955mm spotter camera, and an infrared camera. The fourth sensor is an imaging radar package called a Tactical Endurance Synthetic Aperture Radar (TESAR).
It was controlled using the Army’s TROJAN Special Purpose Integrated Remote Intelligence Terminal (SPIRIT II) to issue commands and receive intelligence using a consortium of secure military and commercial satellites. Everything flowed through the two-meter SATCOM dish mounted atop the van and into the super miniaturized electronic equipment. The back of the van was a blizzard of flickering red and green lights, four monitors displaying the imagery from each of thePredator ’s sensors, and a set of computers and joysticks for flight control.
The NSA technician had linked the ID chip on Adrian Bridger’s digital telephone to a Defense Global Positioning System (DGPS), which was the Pentagon’s hardened, encrypted GPS system. Bridger appeared to be one of those people who never left his digital phone, and he talked constantly. The digital sentinels caught every number he called or received a call from, and Jonas saw everything.
Jonas had earned a reputation inside the CIA. He had been right about Chinese missiles in Panama, and he had almost lost his life pursuing the truth. While he had not been part of the covert operation to eliminate the threat, he had been the analyst to figure out the connection. It garnered him flexibility when requesting information, and the Deputy Director for Operations (DDO) approved the investigation into Damon Layne. The CIA could sense another scandal blooming on the horizon, and if protecting the Agency meant stretching the bounds of Executive Order 12333, which specifically prohibits the CIA from spying on American citizens, well, it would not be the first time.
The conversations were just as interesting as the people Bridger talked to. As Jonas examined the communications, he began to believe that whatever crimes Damon Layne might have committed paled when compared to the crimes Bridger appeared to be actively pursuing.
They had followed Bridger from his Manhattan apartment to his office. Jonas watched the limousine slide inside the underground parking garage on one of thePredator monitors.
“We’ve hooked into the building’s internal security system,” explained the technician. “Considering it’s Sunday morning, the building is vacant except for the security people.”
“What about the phones?” Jonas asked.
“Bridger’s law firm occupies four floors, and they use the same exchange. Fort Meade has the entire exchange under special surveillance. He can’t pick his nose without us knowing about it.” declared the tech. Fort Meade, Maryland hosts the NSA’s headquarters and one of the largest computer complexes in the world.
“Which monitor?” murmured Jonas.
“This one, sir,” said the tech tapping a color screen.
Jonas sat down, observing Bridger’s progress from the basement level garage to his fortieth floor office. The building computer system dutifully reported Bridger’s passage from the executive elevator through the internal security area where his office was located. However, the camera displays only recorded fuzz.
“Any idea what’s wrong?”
“No, sir. They were working yesterday.”
Jonas nodded as a small knot of worry worked its way over the bad coffee he had been drinking all morning.
* * * *
Adrian Bridger swept into his office. He tossed his valise on a chair and moved quickly across the room to his computer terminal. Last minute campaign details preoccupied his attention, and he ignored the pungent glue odor. He failed to notice the blinds were drawn shut when he had left them open the day before. Bridger started tapping on his keyboard only to hear a faint cough coming from the darkened bathroom. Annoyed he looked up and into the dull black barrel of Conner’s Glock.
Conner stepped across the room and closed the office door. His eyes never strayed from Bridger’s hands and he said casually, “I disconnected the pressure plate alarm in the side of your desk.”
Bridger looked down at his knee and back to the gun. “Why don’t you put that gun away,” he began.
Conner shook his head as crossed back to the safer anonymity of the bathroom.
“Do I know you?” asked Bridger innocently.
Conner smirked. “They call youThe Fixer ,” he whispered. “That’s what they called you when they trained me forSpanish Poppy. ”
Bridger did not even flinch at the revelations. Unfortunately, Layne had recruited a smart and resourceful soldier, who had survived the Panamanian jungle and appeared to have eluded his hunters to date. He pushed back from his desk and said, “All right. What can I do for you—money, women…?”
Peace.
The terrible flame-red image of a little blond haired girl getting ripped apart by the bomb he detonated raged through his being. He gasped and swayed for a moment, before righting himself.
Could Bridger offer him Peace?
No, only a bullet could accomplish that.
“Where is Damon Layne?” Conner asked huskily.
Bridger weighed the truth carefully before saying, “I don’t know.”
Conner stared at the lawyer. “Really?”
Bridger nodded.
“Then you’re not worth very much to me. I guess I’ll kill you now,” announced Conner. He wrapped his weak hand around the first and brought the gun to aim.
Bridger’s eyes widened. He held up his hands. “Wait—wait!”
Conner did not pause as his finger took up slack on the four-pound trigger. Bridger hit the floor behind his desk as the .45 boomed and Bridger’s desk chair flipped backwards.
Bridger yanked open the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a Smith & Wesson Airlite revolver. He jerked the trigger twice, firing wide. Conner responded, firing two rounds that splintered the top of Bridger’s desk and burrowed into the carpet. He backed away from Bridger’s muzzle and swung wide, keeping the Glock’s sights focused on where he expected Bridger to pop up.
* * * *
The technician frowned, “Sir, we have a report from the security team on the thirty-ninth floor saying, ‘Shots fired.’”
Jonas leaned forward. “Can we get anything from thePredator cameras on Bridger’s office.”
Mister Jones glanced over Jonas’ shoulder. He never liked unexpected developments.
The technician worked a joystick and keyboard as the central monitor resolved Bridger’s office window. The patched hole in Bridger’s window was clearly visible as were the sudden appearance of two bullet holes starring the double pane glass.
“We’ve got to go in,” exclaimed Jonas.
Mister Jones laid a warning hand on his shoulder and said, “ We can’t. Officially, we don’t even know this happened.”
“But I need Bridger alive,” hissed Jonas.
“Maybe he’ll get lucky,” offered Jones.
* * * *
Bridger’s office door slammed open and the two rent-a-cops tasked with baby-sitting duties for Kenny Caan and Lawrence Halliwell stumbled across the threshold. They were wholly unprepared for Conner Fadden, who turned and crouched. His shoulders rotated like a carefully balanced ball joint. He fired twice, catching one in the chest and the other in the head.
Bridger took advantage of the interruption to run towards the bathroom. He emptied his revolver into the floor and slid into the bathroom like it was home plate during the World Series. He locked the door behind him.
