They'll Call It Treason (5 page)

January 27 at 7:40
a.m.
EST

Norfolk, Virginia – FBI Norfolk Field Office

Beams of sunlight filtered through the bare forestry and around the cloudy sky. Ethan welcomed the balmy rays that slivered through the trees and into the Tahoe. The warmth was refreshing, a contradiction to the freezing temperatures outside the SUV.

Ethan was on his way to the office, still trying to shake the sleep from his eyes. Unlike the yellow Beemer that had blown by him a couple miles back, nearly clipping his front bumper, Ethan was in no hurry.  He took the drive slow and cranked up the radio. His ears bathed in a hard-hitting guitar riff from a new number from one of his favorites, Five Finger Death Punch.

His thoughts were stuck exactly one hundred and ninety-eight miles south in Raleigh, with Kate. After four years of dating, Ethan was finally ready to commit to a lifelong relationship. It had only taken him two years longer than Kate to get to that point. It was all he could do to resist turning around and heading for Raleigh right now. Yet, he was sure the federal government would not take kindly to a federal agent skipping town to propose to his dearly beloved.

As the Tahoe drifted from forest covered state roads to the interstate, his thoughts shuffled between avoiding the idiots driving around him and Kate. Her deep brown eyes beckoning to him. The occasional fifty in a sixty-five mile per hour zone grandma. Kate’s soft cheeks and rosy lips. The teenage wannabe race car driver trying not to be late for school. Her long locks of soft hair in his hands. He wanted to be with her; he dreamt of feeling her lips against his.

“Oh, hell,” Ethan snapped back to reality to the sound of a blaring horn. Lost in his daydreaming, the Tahoe had drifted into the neighboring lane. The tiny excuse for a sedan next to him was not especially happy about it. He made a quick course correction with the snap of his wrist and waved apologetically. In return he received a single, long, boney finger.

Ethan looked away, keeping the irritation bottled up and forced a smile as the car sped in front of him. He refused to stoop to their level. Not today at least. Any other day, but not today.

Ahead he took the off-ramp for exit 11B onto East Brambleton Avenue. The street brimmed with traffic. He hoped it moved quickly.

A few minutes later he pulled into the parking lot of the FBI’s Norfolk Field Office and stepped out of the Tahoe. Using the SUV’s window he checked his reflection. He straightened his blue striped tie and pulled his long coat tighter around his chest. Satisfied, he made his way into the brick faced structure.

Ethan continued down the hall, passing office after office until he reached an open door. The plaque next to the door post read
Special Agent Grayson Whitaker
and
Special Agent Dante Mercer
. He peeked in, finding Grayson sitting at his desk, coffee cup in hand and his sandy brown hair messy as usual. Dante sat by the opposite wall in about the same state, except the coffee.

“Gray, Dante,” Ethan greeted them, startling Grayson.

“Good morning Ethan,” Gray said, flashing a faint smile as he settled back down. His usual morning grogginess evident. A few cups of coffee would eventually fix that.

“Morning, Ethan,” Dante echoed, pointing one large finger out toward Ethan in greeting. “Just as a reminder, nothing Gray said about me at the party last night was true.”

Ethan chuckled at Dante. He was confident most of Gray’s stories were true. How either of them survived past the age of twenty-five always bewildered him.

“I’m sure, Dante,” Ethan smirked at Gray and continued down the hall to his office

Just a few steps down, he entered the office he shared with his lifelong friend and partner in the Bureau. Jason sat at his desk to the right engrossed in his computer screen as usual. Ethan was sure he had arrived at least twenty minutes early. He always did.

“Good morning, Jason,” Ethan greeted him as he hung his coat by the door just beside a crowded brown tack board with pictures strewn across it. To anyone outside the Bureau it probably looked like a smorgasbord of random images. To Ethan it showed a coordinated effort at connecting the seemingly unconnected. Progress, or at least he liked to think of it that way.

“Morning, Ethan,” Jason said without turning around. “Amanda wanted me to thank you for coming to Kallie’s party yesterday.”

“Of course, it’s your little girl,” Ethan smiled, “That’s the closest I have to a kid right now. How could I miss that?”

Jason grinned brightly. Ethan never understood his friend’s penchant for being so alert in the mornings.  Ethan already wanted to unbutton the first few buttons on his white dress shirt and loosen his tie. He felt suffocated in the tight collar. Instead he gave the collar a tug and tried to ignore it.

“So did she enjoy the party?” Ethan asked.

“Yeah, I think she did. She definitely has more dolls than I think she knows what to do with,” Jason joked.

Ethan laughed, “Well, kids are entitled to a little excess every now and then. I remember having way too many video games as a kid, or teenager, maybe both.”

“That we did,” Jason agreed, his smile growing. “We had way too many games and much too much time to play them.”

Laughing, Ethan swung his chair around to face his two LED monitors.

“Yeah, of course now we have other things to deal with,” he said as he began his usual morning routine. Checking his e-mail for any new information or memos from Washington. Most of the messages were the usual. Spam, spam and more spam.

After minutes of sifting through all the messages, only a few remained. A memo from their immediate superior, Agent Frank Summers, a beefy agent twelve years Ethan’s senior who had recently formed a balding crown of grey atop his head. A few leads from informants they were following. And an e-mail from Kate. He was about to open Kate’s e-mail when Jason startled him.

“The judge just approved our warrants,” Jason blurted. It was still early and Ethan had to take a second to remember which case he was talking about.
The Rivers case
. A warrant for a wiretap they had requested yesterday on two possible suspect’s phone communications.

“Great! I bet no one else in the building has gotten one of those lately,” Ethan joked, though he knew he was likely right. Matters of national security had taken a giant leap over the normal legal process the past several years.

Jason smirked, but did not acknowledge the sarcasm. “You want me to head over to pick them up so we can get started?”

“Definitely,” Ethan started. “Ah, hold up a second. I told you I was planning on proposing to Kate soon, right?”

“You did.”

“Well, I’m going to tonight.” Ethan’s grin spread from ear to ear.

January 27 at 10:30
a.m.
EST

Raleigh, North Carolina – North Carolina State University

“If there is one thing to take from this course, beyond a basic understanding of party systems and party structure, it should be that in politics winning elective office, while important, is not everything.”

Kate paused for a moment, letting her students take in the unusual thought. She half expected someone to challenge the statement.  Yet, no one said a word. Not even the short and feisty blond two desks back from the front, the leader of the campus Democrats.

Kate fondled the heart pendant hanging low around her neck. Ethan had given it to her last Valentine’s Day; it had rarely left her neck since.

Genuinely surprised by the lack of objection she continued. “Sometimes, as shown by the Liberty Party and others throughout American history, just competing can be enough to prompt policy reforms. Fundamentally, it boils down to the ability to compete and in so doing, to cause one of the major parties to fear they’ll lose votes because of a smaller party’s appeal."

Kate paused briefly in case someone wanted to interject. Nothing.

“Often we see that the major parties will then co-opt the issues of that smaller party to stay relevant. So in the end both sides win even if they don’t win office.”

With that statement began the sound of students packing their belongings. As always, the sound started in the back of the room and rode like a wave, coming to a crescendo at the front. Kate glanced at the large round clock on the rear wall. She had five minutes left, but she saw no reason to press it.

“Alright, be sure to get started on your first mini-project. They’ll be due two weeks from today,” she reminded the class as they began to pour out the back door into the hallway. “I’ll see you all this coming Monday.”

Kate shutdown her Power Point and logged off the computer where her notes had been displayed. She packed up her remaining supplies along with the weekly homework assignment she had collected at the beginning of class.

After a few goodbyes to students whose names she still had not memorized, she stepped out of the classroom. As expected, her colleague, Martha Pike, stood a few classrooms down the hall waiting for her. Kate waved back at her diminutive friend, admiring the long braided ponytail that hung down her back, accentuating her Ute heritage.

“Good morning, Martha,” Kate said as she approached.

“Morning, Kate,” Martha replied. Her v-shaped jawline and pale lips contrasted well with her taut dark skin. She brimmed with youth and beauty, but she would never say a gloating word about herself.

“You ready to grab a bite?” Martha asked.

“Sure, let’s get going,” Kate agreed.

They passed a group of students and stopped to check traffic before crossing Hillsborough Street. Traffic in a college town could be trying at times. Crossing the tiny road was a hectic venture.

As a break in the cars opened, they jogged across the two-lane road and stepped up onto the other curb. The sidewalk was lined with interconnected shops and restaurants bustling with the activity.

“So how was class?” Martha asked as they walked.

“Early, but good.” Kate responded giggling slightly, “It still surprises me how some of these students are so awake in the morning.”

“Kate, you’re just not a morning person.” Martha assured her.

“True.” Kate paused, “How did you manage not to get a class before eleven?”

“Just lucky, I guess.”

Kate smiled, stealing a glance at an image of a foot-long sub, piled high with meat and veggies. Then another advertising pizza by the slice. But they were headed to the organic coffee shop down the street. Martha was insistent on eating better, and prodding Kate to do the same.

A block later, they entered the coffee shop. The length of the line always seemed much longer than Kate expected for an all-natural café.

“How is Jake doing? How is school going for him?” Kate asked.

“He’s doing better, but his math grades are still not where we want them to be.” Jake was Martha’s thirteen year old son. Martha had been worried about his academics the last couple years. The more complex the math grew, the lower his grades were.

“Lisa is doing well, she is super excited about graduating high school in June,” Martha continued. “She got her acceptance letter from Gardner-Webb the other day. I still want her to come to State.”

Finally they reached the counter. Martha ordered a bagel and dark coffee, Kate a mocha latte and, reluctantly, a croissant. They took a seat by a set of windows looking out onto Hillsborough Street and the university campus.

“You would. That’s understandable. But you need to let her make her own decisions too, she’s growing up.” Kate said before realizing that she was treading on ground she knew nothing about.

“I know. It’s harder though when it’s your kids,” Martha told her. Martha briefly looked down then back up at Kate, “With them growing up it almost makes me want another.”

“Two isn’t enough?”

“Well, I thought it was before one was graduating high school and the other about to enter high school.” Martha laughed.

Kate grinned lightly and thought about Ethan. She wished he would stop waiting to settle down. She wanted a child, a legacy. At this rate she was worried she would be past her prime before Ethan proposed. She pushed the worry aside and attempted to enjoy the small croissant in front of her.

January 27 at 1:20
p.m.
EST

Washington, D.C. – FBI Headquarters

The afternoon sunlight filtering into the office through the slatted window blinds gave the room a natural ambience. Richard Hunt lounged in his leather swivel chair, his polished black Cole Haan dress shoes propped atop a large maple desk.

Across the room he watched the news stream by on one of two thirty-two inch LED monitors affixed to the wall. The NASDAQ had risen a few points. A citizen group down in Texas was threatening a recall of a two-term U.S. Senator. They claimed he had betrayed the public trust after news of the Senator hiring a prostitute on a recent "diplomatic" trip surfaced.

The most notable news item, however, was President Rockwell’s foreign policy announcement. His face had been on loop since he announced his plans earlier in the morning. A phased withdrawal of US military forces from the Middle East starting in under a month. The media could not get enough of it. The withdrawal would mark the end of decades of military occupation in the Middle East.

Both CNN and Fox News polls had shown widespread approval of the President’s plan. Richard, on the other hand, was not pleased.

To hell with political pandering. Well, my job just got harder.

On the adjacent screen, a collage of mug shots sat in neat columns. It was the list of current top priority suspects in various cases the Branch was following. The images scrolled by, highlighting pertinent information about the suspects as they vanished off the edge of the screen.

His desk was well-kept. A keyboard and mouse occupied the center, a notepad and silver pen cup sat to his right. On the opposite end stood a tray of papers and a few tan folders.

Richard was the Executive Assistant Director of the FBI’s National Security Branch, tasked with counterterrorism, counter-intelligence and preventing weapons of mass destruction from ending up on US soil in the wrong hands. At fifty-eight, he had worked his way up the ladder. Starting in college with earning his Doctorate in Information Technology, specializing in Computer Forensics. He had the degree from MIT hanging on the wall behind him to prove it. The rest was history.

The years had been good to Richard even though his pale skin was showing signs of aging and his grey eyes had sunken slightly. Despite a pattern of male baldness in his family Richard still managed a full head of salt and pepper hair along with a trimmed mustache and beard. Through his years in the Bureau, Richard had remained in great shape, but his new desk job as Director threatened to tarnish his record.

“The screening center is working around the clock and all leads are being carefully monitored,” Special Agent Aran Day stated, sitting across the desk from Richard. Day was an energetic “young’un,” as Richard sometimes referred to him, in his early thirties. His Thai blood was evident in his smooth, yet hard edged, features. His jet black hair was sculpted but messy. It was a look Richard often sneered at.

Richard’s attention seemed elsewhere as Aran gave his report. The Director gazed around the room, mostly at the screens behind Agent Day. Aran was accustomed to his boss’s habits. He knew the Director was in fact paying attention in his own way. He could likely recite the majority of Aran’s report without hesitation, a talent Aran envied.

“All known lines of inbound foreign and domestic communication are being monitored, sir, for any potential threats to the President and those in the line of succession,” Aran persisted. “We have streamlined our cooperation with the NSA to ensure constant access.”

Richard slowly nodded his head. He remembered the bad publicity the NSA’s PRISM program had received in 2013 when the program was leaked to the press. After a few years of political theater, a few filibusters, a laughable congressional investigation and keeping things more tight to the chest, the program had restarted quietly in spite of public opposition.

Congress was unwilling to go on the record as being weak on religious extremist and terrorist sympathizers. They soon authorized that a certain level of “invasion of privacy” was warranted to secure the nation, with congressional oversight of course. Richard and his counterparts at the NSA just ensured that only a small portion of their departments’ dealings were on the level. The rest, for America’s sake, was better left to his good judgment.

Richard met Agent Day’s eyes, breathed in deeply and exhaled before speaking. “Every year when the President gives the State of the Union there are threats – multitudes of threats. Let’s be careful how thinly we spread out our resources. Focus on the legitimate threats.”

“Understood, sir,” Aran concurred.

“For now, anything not dealing with the President goes to local field offices to distribute the load.”

“Yes, sir.”

It was going to be a long week.