CHAPTER FIVE
Faith checked her watch. Seven-oh-five. Apparently in addition to being a prick, Chief Rosenberg was also fine with being late. Must be nice to be the big fish in a small pond.
She was considering just leaving the airport and finding Craig Daniels another way.
All of Entwhistle’s subordinates had confirmed that the confrontation between the two had gotten ugly, though all stressed it hadn’t gotten physical.
They had more than enough to make their suspicions reasonable.
Waiting around for yet another bit of information wasn’t going to help.
She opened her mouth to say that to Jessica when her partner said, “Finally. There she is.”
Faith looked at the staff entrance to see a short, thin woman in a crisp suit a size too large for her push past the security guards without so much as a glance.
She had medium-length platinum blonde hair and wore dark sunglasses that made her look like a suspect in a white-collar crime case trying to hide her identity on her way out of the courtroom.
“Okay,” Faith said. “Let’s go talk to her before she finds a reason to avoid us.”
She got to her feet, and Turk stood next to her, wagging his tail. They started toward Rosenberg when Faith’s phone rang. When she saw Michael’s number, her eyes widened. “Jess, it’s Michael. I’m gonna take this, okay? Can you interview her?”
“Yeah, for sure,” Jessica said. “Let me know what he says.”
Faith smiled gratefully and stepped away to answer the phone without being overheard. Turk followed, looking intently at her, sensing her nervous excitement.
She found a corner that was a little removed from the press of the morning crowd and answered. “Hey, Michael. That was fast. Do you have a name?”
“No,” Michael said reluctantly. “I’m afraid not.”
Faith’s excitement faded. “Uh oh.”
“Uh oh is right. Whoever this guy is, he really doesn’t want us to find out.”
Faith sighed. “So you can’t trace him?”
“Oh, we traced the emails. It’s the Stafford County Public Library in Stafford Courthouse. They were sent from one of the computers you can rent for three dollars an hour if you don’t have a library card.”
“Let me guess. He doesn’t have a library card.”
“If he does, he didn’t use it to access the computer. I can confirm that it is a he. That’s about it.”
Faith perked up a little. “So you have footage of him?”
“Yeah, but he wore a baseball cap and kept his face down and away from the cameras. I couldn’t even tell you for certain that he’s Caucasian. I’ll send you the footage, but… Well, that’s where we’re at.”
Faith nodded. “Okay, so where does that leave us with the email? Do was assume it’s genuine?”
“I don’t like the word assume because… Well, you’ve heard the joke.
But I would deduce that it’s genuine because of the CIA wanted to feed us false information, they’d probably just send it from one of their own systems. They wouldn’t want to type this out in public where anyone can look over their agent’s shoulder and wonder what’s going on. ”
“Right,” Faith said. “Okay. So do I tell David to go ahead and keep looking?”
“I’ll call him. You’ve got a case to deal with.”
“All right. Thank you, Michael.”
Michael chuckled. “I don’t think I deserve thanks this time, but I appreciate it.
He hung up, and Faith looked up at the crowds of people lining up to be confirmed safe to travel. A few wore excited faces, perhaps returning home to loved ones or embarking on a vacation to take a short break from the monotony of their daily life. A sizable minority looked exhausted.
Most of them just looked checked out. They shuffled forward, blank-faced, vacant-eyed. Unaware of their surroundings. Trusting that everything was as it appeared. Because if it wasn’t, then what could they believe?
Turk licked her hand, and she smiled down at him. “I’m okay, boy. Just tired.”
He gave her a frank look, and she chuckled. “Don’t believe that one anymore, huh?”
He dipped his head, and she laughed again. “Well, I’m hanging in there. Do you believe that?”
He snorted and tapped her thigh with his muzzle.
“I love you, boy. Did you know that?”
Her phone buzzed, and after giving Turk an affectionate pat, she pulled it from her pocket and confirmed receipt of the footage Michael had found.
She played the first video. It showed the Stafford County Public Library about twenty minutes south of Quantico.
A few other patrons were using the computers, mostly students researching for reports.
Faith assumed it wasn’t any of them because the camera was angled in a way that focused primarily on one computer terminal.
Faith watched, heart pounding in anticipation.
Then a figure in a thick windbreaker with a baseball cap pulled tightly over his head approached the computer.
His collar was turned all the way up, and he lifted his shoulders so that collar covered his face, revealing nothing.
He sat at the desk and angled the chair so that he could type on the keyboard without revealing himself to the camera.
Faith watched him type the first email to David, every few seconds glancing around as though afraid he would be discovered. He sent the email, logged out, got immediately to his feet and left.
Faith wished she had asked Michael for the email address, but it was probably a different one each time, something auto-generated by the library computer.
She opened the second file. It was similar to the first, only this time, the informant wore a turtleneck instead of the windbreaker, and it was a beanie pulled low over his head with large dark sunglasses to cover his face.
As Michael had hinted, it was difficult even to confirm an ethnicity, but his bone structure suggested Caucasian.
He also looked young. Younger than Faith.
Maybe Jessica’s age group, which would place him in his mid-twenties.
It was difficult to know that for sure without a good look at his face, but the way he moved seemed young, spryer and quicker where an older person would be more measured in their movements.
She sighed and bit her lower lip softly. Not much to go on there.
Still, it was encouraging. He definitely didn’t look like an agent placing bait.
She supposed he could have been putting on an act in case anyone found this footage, but that seemed paranoid to Faith.
More likely than not, the anxiety and furtiveness were all real.
This young man was going out on a limb trying to put a stop to something immoral.
Faith admired him and sympathized with his fear.
She’d been fortunate never to have to deal with corrupt leaders.
The worst she’d encountered was her first SAC’s original replacement, a by-the-book ASAC who allowed her insecurity to poison her behavior and keep her from seeing the trees for the forest. That ASAC had been a short-lived problem, and even she wasn’t corrupt, just unready.
Jack Preston, Turk’s original handler in the FBI and an old mentor of Faith’s, used to tell stories about the Director before Smythe, a smooth-talking career politician named Patel who used his silver tongue to ingratiate himself with the Cabinet and other members of the Intelligence Community.
He’d lost his job when it was discovered that he’d been embezzling six figures a year from the Bureau, a fact that grated rather significantly on the Bureau’s employees considering that he was notoriously stingy with raises and bonuses.
Even that paled in comparison to being given orders to abuse innocent animals. Faith couldn’t imagine being in that position. She couldn’t imagine the pressure he must be under risking his life to help them.
Her stomach turned as she realized just how complicated this situation was becoming.
David’s little crusade had turned into a real operation against a CIA project that now involved Faith’s friends, their contacts in other agencies, and even an inside man from the CIA unit.
Somehow, David had stumbled on maybe the biggest currently existing coverup in the CIA, and now they were all caught up in trying to expose it and put a stop to it.
Sometimes she wished she’d just stuck with the Marine Corps and finished her career as an E-8 collecting a pension.
You’d still have two years left. If you hadn’t been shot and killed first.
She called David and got his voicemail. “Hey, baby, just letting you know we got the results back. Nothing conclusive, but we might as well move forward. We’re probably not going to get a clear answer. Love you. Oh, and take Hammerton and Rogers with you. I’d rather not leave them alone.”
She had spoken a little cryptically to hide what she was actually saying, but it was still clear enough. She didn’t want David going out on his own and getting hurt. She finished with, “Keep me posted. Love you.”
She hung up and smiled down at Turk. “Okay, boy. That’s that. Let’s go find Jessica.”
Turk barked and trotted next to her as they navigated through the masses toward the TSA office in Concourse E. She looked down at her dog, older now but still so alive and so beautiful. How could anyone hurt such perfect creatures?
Then again, she’d seen people who got a kick out of mutilating people. It was, unfortunately, not very hard at all to imagine someone evil enough to hurt dogs.
But that was why they were here. They caught bad guys. No matter how big and scary those bad guys were. They’d catch the bad guy who had killed Jackson Entwhistle, and they’d catch the bad guys who tried to kill David. They would rue the day they’d decided to mess with Faith Bold’s husband.