Hide and Seek (31 page)

An inner courtyard was partially covered with a massive tent-like canopy, other areas were open and provided some greenery to relax within the concrete-and-glass structure.

Nick drove to the parking lot closest to the main entrance. In case something went wrong, he would need to get to his car quickly to leave the CIA campus before they locked the place down. It was still early. Many employees were only just arriving. He’d timed it that way, knowing that during busy times he had a better chance of slipping through unnoticed. In the morning, everybody was too concerned with getting their first cup of coffee and not fully awake yet.

Nick exited the car and locked it, then walked calmly toward the entrance. From the corner of his eye, he observed other men and women doing the same. Some held paper coffee cups, others carried briefcases. Most were dressed in suits or other business casual clothing.

For three years, Nick had waited for this opportunity, and now it had finally come. As if he still belonged here, he walked through the glass doors, entering the white-and-gray marble-and-granite entrance hall. Nothing had changed. A row of turnstiles awaited him. Beyond them the well-known CIA seal made of white-and-gray granite tiles was laid into the floor.

He lined up at one of the turnstiles, waiting his turn to swipe his identification card. The person ahead of him marched through it quickly, and he followed, swiping his card.

A high-pitched beep sounded, and a red light flashed at his turnstile.

Adrenaline shot through him.

Shit!

A security guard walked up to him, glancing at his ID. “Sorry, sir, we’ve been having some problems with this one this morning when people come through too quickly. Please try again now.”

Nick plastered a fake smile on his face and nodded. “No problem.”

Heart beating in his throat, he swiped his card again. A green light flashed at once.

“Go ahead, sir,” the security guard said, waving him through. “It’s all good now. Have a nice day.”

“You, too.”

Relieved, Nick marched through the turnstile and walked to the end of the hall. Sweat trickled from his neck and disappeared beneath the collar of his starched dress shirt. Another incident like that, and he’d have a heart attack at thirty-three.

Focusing on the task ahead, Nick let his gaze roam. He still knew his way around, though it had been over three years since he’d last been at Langley. The maze of corridors had never seemed daunting to him before. He’d loved the challenge, loved to figure out the fastest way from point A to point B.

Acting as if he belonged there, Nick walked confidently. He never hesitated, always planned ahead, his mind constantly mapping out the path in front of him, so he would never have to stop to orient himself. He wouldn’t give anybody a reason to look at him with suspicion.

He didn’t take the elevator, but used the stairs instead, not wanting to be in a confined space from which it would be difficult to escape should anybody recognize him. Though it was unlikely, there was always a chance of running into somebody who knew Sheppard and therefore knew the badge that hung on Nick’s pocket wasn’t his, even though the picture was of his face.

It felt like an eternity until he reached the right corridor. He approached the door that said
Restricted Area
and stopped. Outside of it were a card reader and a camera.

Nick swiped his card, then lifted his face toward the camera, knowing that a facial recognition software was about to scan his face and compare it to the picture on file—the picture he’d uploaded to the CIA’s systems himself.

Several seconds passed, then he heard a click. Nick pushed against the door. It opened inward. He stepped through it and let the door close behind him. It was quieter here, though he knew he wasn’t alone. Along the corridor were several rooms with their doors closed.

“I’m in,” he whispered into the tiny mic hidden beneath the lapel of his jacket.

“Good, we’ve got you.”

He heard Stingray’s reply in his ear and sighed with relief. The GPS in the heel of Nick’s shoe was sending back a signal to his fellow Phoenix. The infrared system Michelle had tapped into and showed Stingray how to use, was doing the rest.

“Walk straight ahead,” came the first instruction through his earpiece.

With an outward calmness, Nick passed the closed doors until he reached a bend in the corridor.

“Now left.”

He turned left.

“Third door.”

Nick counted. At the third door, he stopped. There was only a number on it, no other indication of what lay behind it.

“Is it empty?” Nick asked, keeping his voice low.

“Yes. Infrared indicates no human inside. It’s a go.”

Nick pushed the door open and slipped in, easing it shut behind him. The humming noise in the room was created by the many computers lining one wall.

“I’m going silent,” he advised Stingray.

“Understood.”

Nick walked up to the first computer and touched the mouse. The login screen came on as expected. He pulled the paper Ranger had given him from his pocket and placed it next to the keyboard, then typed in the string of numbers and letters into the login and password area on the screen. Praying he was correct that this was Sheppard’s ghost login, he pressed the
Enter
key.

It only took a second for a blue desktop to appear.
Welcome, Henry,
it said in large letters before the writing faded into the background, and made way for several icons.

It wasn’t hard to navigate the area. Sheppard had been an organized man, keeping everything in its proper place.

Under a folder named
Stargate
, the CIA program Sheppard had once been part of and from which he’d created the Phoenix program, Nick found a folder simply named
My Boys
.

For a brief instant, Nick’s heart clenched. Sheppard had truly been a father to him, and most likely to the other Phoenix, too. To know that he had seen them as his sons, brought back the pain of losing him. But he had no time to wallow in that pain now.

Nick clicked on the folder.

Shock made him jerk back. The folder was empty.

“Shit!” he cursed.

“What’s wrong?” Stingray asked.

“Not now!”

Frantically, Nick searched the remainder of the folders. Empty, all of them!

“Fuck!” he cursed. “Somebody got here ahead of us! The files are all gone!”

“Shit!” Stingray ground out.

“Wait!” He’d just had an idea. “The recycle bin.” Maybe it hadn’t been emptied and the deleted files were still sitting in there.

Nick clicked on the icon. Empty, too.

“Fuck!” All this for nothing. He kicked against the desk, frustrated. “Somebody knew we’d be coming.”

“Get out of there!” Stingray ordered. “Now!”

“There must be another way,” Nick mumbled to himself. There had to be. He scanned all icons on the desktop once more.

“Damn it, Fox, you’ve gotta leave!”

Nick shook his head, when his eyes suddenly fell on an icon he’d ignored. “The backup system.”

“What?”

“All computers are backed up regularly. The backup files are kept for quite some time.” He only had to figure out where the backup files were kept.

Quickly, Nick opened the control panel and searched for the right area then scanned the information and found the file path he was looking for.

Moments later, he’d navigated to it. There were hundreds of backup files pertaining to Sheppard’s files. They were listed chronologically. The last one had been made about a month after Sheppard’s death. Since then, the files in his cloud hadn’t been backed up, most likely because the system hadn’t detected any activity.

Nick opened the last backup file, the one made after Sheppard’s death, but no folder with the name
My Boys
was among it. This meant that somebody had erased it within a month after the Phoenix program’s leader had been murdered.

Remembering Sheppard’s date of death all too well, Nick clicked on the file with a date only two days prior.

“Shit, Fox!” Stingray’s voice came through his earpiece. “Somebody’s coming. You’ve gotta hightail it outta there.”

“I only need a minute,” he said, already perusing the contents of the backup file. “There! Got it!” The folder named
My Boys
was right there. Nick clicked on it, and a long list of individual files appeared, all carrying only initials.

Nick pulled a flash drive from his pocket, jammed it in the computer’s USB port. Immediately, an alert flashed on the screen:
Copying disabled
. He’d expected this, but thanks to his years in the CIA’s Data Security department, he knew a way around it. He typed in the appropriate command and seconds later, copied the entire folder. A window popped up, indicating the number of megabytes it was copying and the time left.

“Damn it, Fox! Get your ass out of there now!”

“Almost there, just twenty more seconds!”

Drumming his fingers on the desk, he watched the time on the window decrease. “Ten seconds.”

“Now, Fox, now!”

The window closed, indicating that the copying process was complete. Nick pulled the flash drive from the USB port and shut the computer down.

He headed for the door.

“Fuck!” he cursed and whirled back around. “The login credentials.”

“Leave ’em!” Stingray ordered.

“Can’t!” He rushed back to the computer, snatched the piece of paper from the desk and ran back to the door. He eased it open.

“Turn right! Into the office next to you.”

Nick followed Stingray’s command without hesitation and dove into the room next to the one he’d just exited. Just in time, as it turned out. Footsteps passed by his door. Then the door to the other room was opened and closed.

“Now, out!” Stingray ordered.

Breathing heavily, Nick exited the room and walked back the same way he’d come. At the door, he stopped for a brief moment, then he pushed it open and left the restricted area.

As he walked through the maze of corridors, back toward the main entrance, he glanced at one of the clocks on the wall. It was high time that he left. His hour was almost up. Shortly, a vigilant system administrator would realize that the ID Nick was using belonged to a dead man. But before that happened, Nick had to get back to the computer Stingray and Ranger were using to keep tabs on him, and replace his photo on Sheppard’s ID with Sheppard’s original one.

He increased his speed, but didn’t run. It would only draw suspicion onto him. At the next turn, he reached the entrance hall. Ahead of him was the oversized seal of the CIA, and beyond it were the turnstiles. Nick let his eyes roam. The security guard who’d assisted him earlier was gone, probably on a break. Somebody else had taken his place. Good. It meant the guy wouldn’t get suspicious seeing him leave again so quickly.

Trying to appear as relaxed and calm as he could under the circumstances, Nick walked past the turnstiles and through the glass doors into the open air. He didn’t look back, and continued in the same tempo until he reached the Toyota.

“I’m outside.”

“Good. We’ll be right there.”

Nick unlocked the car and got inside. When the engine started, he felt a little better already, but only once he’d passed through the gate, leaving the CIA campus, did his heart beat normally again.

The Buick with Ranger, Stingray, and Lisa was waiting for him in a side street about two miles from the CIA’s security gate.

Nick pulled over, killed the engine, and took out a special antiseptic wipe, ripped open the package and proceeded to wipe down the steering wheel, gear stick, and anything else he’d touched. Not only would it make sure he didn’t leave any fingerprints behind, it would also get rid of any DNA. He finished by wiping the outside door handle, before he stuffed the used wipe and packaging into his pocket then got into the waiting Buick.

Stingray was driving, pulling into the street the moment Nick was inside the car.

“You got it?” Ranger asked eagerly.

He sat in the back with Lisa, his girlfriend, a pretty woman with a kind smile.

Nick patted his jacket pocket. “I’ve got it.” Then he looked at his watch. “Step on the gas, Stingray. Michelle is waiting for us.”

Ranger handed him his computer, jetpack already attached, and Nick didn’t lose any time wiping out any trace of his picture on Sheppard’s old CIA access card.

It took them less than ten minutes on the George Washington Memorial Parkway to reach the Arlington Metro station.

Nick searched for the van. “Do you see her?”

“Nothing,” Ranger said.

“Shit!” Nick cursed and looked at his watch again. Then his nape began to prickle uncomfortably. “Something isn’t right. Shit, something happened to Michelle.”

23

Michelle cursed. She’d wanted to place only one more camera, but had remembered too late that the northbound lane on George Washington Memorial Parkway didn’t have an exit on Columbia Island. So she’d had to double-back after installing a camera right off the highway where the Pentagon Lagoon Yacht Basin was flowing back into the Potomac River. The bridge was a strategic point from which any boat leaving the lagoon could be watched.

Unfortunately the detour had cost her precious minutes. Minutes, it now turned out, she didn’t have. Because she wasn’t the only early bird.

“Well, look who couldn’t wait to meet,” the stranger said in a menacing voice, as he gripped her elbow.

She knew immediately that this wasn’t Smith. His voice sounded different, and he let her see his face. Smith had always made sure she never got a glimpse of him so she couldn’t identify him.

One thing was immediately crystal clear: this man had been sent by Smith to get rid of her.

“Let’s go somewhere more private,” he suggested, jamming something hard—and concealed beneath the jacket that he’d slung over his forearm—into her side.

She didn’t need to see the item to know it was a gun. She also knew immediately why he wanted to head away from the path that led back to where she’d parked the van. A group of three-to-five year olds was playing in the open meadow only a few yards away, supervised by three young kindergarten teachers. He couldn’t kill her here, or he would have several witnesses and a panicked group of kids on his hands.