CHAPTER 23
Reston, Virginia
Friday
10:41 p.m. Eastern Time
Several silenced shots fired and then there was silence for a few seconds. Toby looked up at Frank, who was swinging a window curtain furiously at the blazing kitchen table about the time he heard Mac’s call.
“Rear of the house is secured. Runners apprehended.”
Toby had quit wondering if they were in the clear after he’d heard the back door and the shots. Even though they knew there was another person upstairs, that person hadn’t moved since they’d arrived. He or she was either tied up or recently dead. Either way, they couldn’t get up there if this fire burned the place down. And, more importantly to possibly millions of lives, they absolutely had to preserve the evidence in this house. It was their only lead. The couch cushion he was using to swing at the flames ignited as some of the diesel fuel adhered to it. He continued to fight as the flames grew. Swinging the cushion only added more air to the fuel and made the flames grow more quickly. He tossed the cushion to the floor and started looking for something else to fight the fire with. Frank had slung the curtain across the island sink just enough to lower the flames by the faucet. Toby pulled the water on full and grabbed the dish sprayer. The water went about a half a meter to a meter at best. The flames were too hot to even reach with it, but it might create a fire break in the floor.
The two of them had easily overpowered the two men they were previously fighting, but fire was a force multiplier that rapidly advanced. They were losing ground and starting to lose the fight. Seeing the water being useless, Frank kicked at one of the cabinet doors under the kitchen sink, knocking it open. There was a tiny home fire extinguisher underneath.
“Toby! Extinguisher!”
“Got it!”
Toby quickly grabbed the fire extinguisher, pulled the pin, and started spraying. The monoammonium phosphate dry chemical sucked the oxygen from the base of the flame against the kitchen wall and started to reduce the heat on his face. But almost as soon as he’d depressed the squeeze handle of the tiny kitchen extinguisher it was empty. The fire continued to build just a little more slowly in that one spot. There was too much diesel splashed about and they were standing in the middle of a fueled hotbox that was rapidly engulfing them. The kitchen had reached a point with bright orange flames surrounding them and black smoke filling the room that they could no longer safely stay and fight.
“Frank! We gotta get out here!” Toby said, coughing from his burning lungs.
“Out the front!” Frank shouted over the flames. “Goddamnit!”
Suddenly, several men in firefighting gear burst in with a large hoseline and started spraying. Two more men flanked them with large extinguisher packs clearing a path for them to evacuate.
“Get out of here, guys!” one of them shouted at Toby and Frank. “This way!”
“Got it!” Toby said. He turned back over his shoulder on the way out and yelled as loudly as he could. “We have to stop this fire!”
“Understood! Now clear so we can do our job!”
“Come on, T.” Frank grabbed Toby by the buddy collar and yanked him backward toward the clear exit.
“There’s still someone upstairs,” Frank told him as he motioned with a hand toward the stairwell. There was the possibility they were tied and gagged, but neither of them was expecting that to be the case. They had to also keep in mind that there was always the possibility that the first two men were the distraction and delay to give a third time to do something else—steal files, erase files, cover tracks, escape out a window. The simple fact was, they had no idea what was going on upstairs with the other person, so they had to be cautious and prepared for anything.
“Let’s get up there and see what is what just in case the fire gets out of hand. We can always bail out a window.” Toby popped in a fresh magazine and brought his pistol back to the ready. Frank nodded in agreement and shoved a few more shells into the shotgun. The racking of the pump was barely audible over the noise from the firefighting.
“Two down in the backyard,” Chief McKagan’s voice came over the channel. “Need medics. Noncritical.”
“Copy that, Mac,” Frank replied. “Casey, we’re going upstairs. Keep an eye out for second-floor egresses.”
“Copy that. I still have you on thermal and in the crosshairs,” Dugan confirmed.
“Mac, Kenny, keep an eye on the other first-floor exits and windows.”
“Copy that, Frank. The major and I have our eyes peeled.”
“Your dance, want to lead?” Frank asked Toby.
“Sure,” Montgomery replied. Then he keyed the mic open. “Get some guys in here now to cover the fire team’s rear and protect evidence!”
“Copy that. On our way now.”
Toby started up the stairs facing forward with his back hugging the wall. While it appeared that the firefighters had the blaze mostly knocked down, the smoke was brutal even through his ski mask. Frank stayed a couple steps behind him, looking backward to cover their rear, just in case they had missed something. There were no lights on in the house other than their flashlights, the lights the firefighters were carrying, and the light from what flames were left. There were no radios, televisions, or computers making any noise but there was plenty of noise from downstairs. The sounds from the smoke alarms and the high-pressure hose spraying water against the walls were almost deafening. Toby noted that even with all that background noise, the only sounds he was truly hearing at the moment were his footsteps and his heart pounding in his chest from the adrenaline.
The stairs were hardwood and made it difficult to quietly step up them. He hoped that all the ruckus and background noise drowned their approach up the stairs. The hardwood stairs led to a carpeted hallway. Toby noted that once they stepped off the stairs and onto the carpet their steps were practically undetectable. The smoke alarm in the hallway suddenly went off, startling him to the point that he spun toward it raising his handgun. He almost put a round through the thing. Frank placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Easy, T.”
“Right,” Toby whispered. “Goddamned adrenaline.”
At the end of the hallway was a door about three-quarters of the way open. There was a source of light—slowly flickering mauves and some deeper purples with a brighter flicker here and there—but still no sound. There was just enough light that Toby could see the knee-high cloud of smoke wafting through the hallway ahead of them and rising slowly toward the ceiling return vent of the central air unit. The odd air currents at the end of the hallway underneath the return vent had created a swirl of smoke that was forming a vortex. He thought it resembled the skinny twister in The Wizard of Oz that had carried Dorothy away.
“We’re not in Kansas anymore,” Toby muttered quietly. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist.”
Frank smiled but didn’t respond. He pointed with a nod of his head at the cracked-open door at the end of the hall. There was a flickering of light shining through that suggested a computer monitor or a television screen was on.
They quietly and cautiously took one step at a time on the carpet. It seemed like it was taking them forever to cover the three-meter distance. Once at the end of the hallway, Toby made a few hand gestures to Frank, telling him that he was going in on a count of three. Three finger ticks later, he burst through with Frank behind him. His pistol out in front and ready to fire, he came to an abrupt halt.
“Freeze! Don’t move!” Toby said to the man slumped in the computer chair, placing the green dot of his sight on his desk chair about vital organ high. The screensaver from the computer monitor on the desk continued changing what looked like vacation pictures of various scenes and locations, changing the lighting in the room. He moved closer and spun the chair with his boot, weapon at the ready.
“Shit!”
Toby pulled the black tactical armored glove from his right hand and dropped it to the floor. He placed two fingers at the man’s throat, trying to find an artery beating somewhere, anywhere, but there was nothing. He squinted briefly as the lights in the room flicked on and then turned to see Frank by the light switch looking down at them.
“Dead?”
“Yep,” Toby said. “Shit.”
“Overwatch, Alpha,” Frank said. “Any other signatures?”
“Negative, Alpha. Area is secure. Fire team reports the blaze is out.”
“Copy. Thanks, fellas.”
“Case, you got anything?” Frank asked.
“Nothing, and the FBI guys have surrounded and entered the house. The flames appear to be out, Frank,” Dugan reported. “If you can spare me, I want to go check something out nearby.”
“Clear to go, Casey. Anything we should know about?” Frank asked.
“Not sure.”
“Overwatch, Alpha.”
“Go, Alpha.”
“Clear from me and give Major Dugan the bird’s-eye,” Frank said.
“Copy, Alpha…transferring to Beta track.”
“Be careful, Case,” Frank said.
“Copy that.”
“Alright, Toby. Looks like we’re good to get your forensics guys up here,” Frank said. “In the meantime, let’s have a look around.”
“Frank.” Toby looked at the dead man. “How did…whoever they are know we were coming here in time to beat us and to tie up this loose end?”
“Good question.” Frank pulled his mask off and rubbed at the stubble growing on his chin. It was at that point where it was starting to itch. Toby slid his own mask up to his forehead. “Did you tip them off by making inquiries, or did I, or did somebody else on the Task Force do it? Either way, it means we’re being watched.”
“Or it means you can’t trust somebody on your team,” Toby warned. “How well do you know them? You got a mole?”
“I don’t know any of them except for the SEAL, really. I met him a few years back on a mission. He’s a good Squid. Not a marine, mind you, but a good Squid. I asked about the others in the usual places. The guys in-service, well, they check out with some damn fine service records. I trust them. The CIA lady, I just met her. But she checks out as far as I can tell. Same for the NSA expert. Honestly, maybe you should do your thing. For now, we trust, but verify. So, do some verifying for me if you don’t mind?”
“Don’t mind at all. Got it,” Toby agreed. “I’ll get the team on it as soon as we tag and bag this place.” Toby made a mental note to get backgrounds and tracks on all the members of the Task Force. He thought it might be a good idea to get one on everyone, including Frank, so it wouldn’t look suspicious. He’d make it look like a typical background check. He’d even put in a request for any new members coming onboard to have their information sent through the usual FBI background check process. That would be a good cover.
“If you find anything, come to me with it first. The Joint Chiefs will need to know,” Frank said.
“Our guy here, quite the rabble rouser.” Toby pointed at the book titles spread about on his bookshelf. There were many of the books you’d expect an engineer or analyst to have, with tabs marking pages and such, but there were also many political and philosophical books that gave insight to his personality profile.
“Saul Alinsky’s greatest hits, it appears.” Frank nodded that he understood and looked closer at the books, titles, and authors. “Marx, Engels, World Economic Forum Report, climate change stuff—we’ve got a true believer here.”
“Look at this one.” Toby pointed at a book on the side of his desk. Frank leaned in and read it.
“Nuclear War Survival Skills: A Civil Defense Manual.” Frank exhaled nervously. “Think he knew something we don’t?”
“Look at these prepper books.” Toby tapped a stack of various survival skills and prepping books stacked on the floor with his boot, being careful not to knock them over. “Dude was preparing for an apocalypse. I bet if we looked around, we could find directions to a prepper shelter somewhere.”
“Coming up!” a female voice from below shouted. It was Dr. Banks. They could hear her footsteps as they stepped off the stairwell and onto the carpet. Toby reflexively pulled the mask back down over his face. He’d been undercover so long it was just a habit.
“Frank, check this out.” Toby used the barrel of his pistol to pull a stack of papers to the left of the keyboard on the desk more open so he could read them. There were missile design drawings of American, Chinese, and Russian ICBMs of the nuclear variety stacked there. There was a detailed drawing of a Russian launch vehicle printed out with numbers that had been highlighted in pink. Several of the printed papers had sticky notes jutting out from within, marking specific pages and passages. There was a notepad of green-lined engineering paper with multiple pages flipped over the top and tucked under the back. The page facing upward had a maroon-colored Skilcraft mechanical pencil of the government variety sitting on top of it. The page was filled with drawings of ellipses with intercepting curves and lots of math scribbled about. Toby bumped the mouse to clear the screensaver and luckily for them it hadn’t locked itself out yet. On the screen was some sort of simulation running, showing a big blue slightly squished circle with a red arc intercepting it. There were numbers changing and an equation at the top with the words, “goodness of fit = 0.99724322.”
“What is it?”
“Our guy here. He was reading up on ICBMs,” Toby said. “And doing some sort of rocket science or something.”
“Wasn’t that his day job?” Frank asked.
“Whose day job…?” Ginny paused, seeing the dead man slumped in the chair. He had a single bullet hole in his forehead and there was red and gray splatter over the high-backed black-and-blue gamer’s chair he was in. Blood pooled in the floor underneath him, saturating the carpet. “Oh shit.”
“Yeah, ‘oh shit’ is right,” Toby agreed. “He’s your man, right?”
“Phillip Watkins?” Ginny asked. “Well, let’s see.”
She took out her cell phone and snapped a picture of the man’s face and then texted it to someone. Then she gingerly took his right hand and placed his fingertips on the screen and pressed the side button. The screen flickered a couple of times. She sent another text or email or whatever. Her phone buzzed a couple of times and then she looked up at the two of them.
“It matches. This is Phillip Joseph Watkins, the analyst that put the nuclear scientist dossier together for us.”
“The question is…” Toby paused, knowing they could finish his thought for him.
“Right. Why is he dead now?” Ginny asked.
“My thoughts exactly,” Frank agreed.
“We need to get a complete inventory and workup of everything on this desk, in this computer, and in this house,” Toby said. “Dr. Banks, we need every personnel file CIA has on this man. This is now a murder and an FBI investigation.”
“Don’t forget the bigger picture, Toby,” Frank said.
“All part of it,” Toby said. “Anything I can do to help, I’m all in.”