Chapter 43
WASHINGTON, D.C.
By the time Shawna Vaughn stepped through the Northwest Gate, the White House behind her had taken on that strange Sunday-night stillness Washington did so well.
Not quiet, exactly, but muffled. Lights still burned in offices throughout the grounds.
Nobody was easing off. The return from Camp David had not lessened the pressure.
If anything, the long day had intensified it.
The focus remained the same. China. Taiwan. Troop and equipment movements. Satellite imagery. Naval dispositions. Timing. Intent. No one Vaughn had heard claimed to know anything for certain. But everyone knew enough to be worried.
And running quieter and uglier beneath all that talk was a second conversation. Erin Delaney hadn’t come back to work.
That alone had been enough to get people talking. Erin was Type A with a capital T and a capital A. She was always the first one in to the office and the last one out. After a Camp David weekend built around the Taiwan crisis, nobody at her level simply vanished and failed to show up for work.
Then the rumors had started. A federal agent murdered at her house.
Two other men shot and killed at her ex-fiancé Connor’s apartment.
Connor missing. Erin missing. He was a Marine with multiple combat tours.
The PTSD had gotten him fired. Erin had broken off their engagement.
Had Connor snapped? Had he taken Erin hostage?
Every version had a different twist. Every version had been wrong. Or at least partly wrong. That was how Vaughn knew the story was spreading fast and through all the wrong channels.
Crossing Pennsylvania Avenue, she cut through Lafayette Square and her eyes scanned everything—tree line, benches, the slow drift of headlights beyond the iron fence.
October had brought with it a damp chill.
A thin ground fog had gathered low over the grass, giving the park the look of an old photograph left too long in the dark.
Normally, she liked this part of D.C. at night—the history, the architecture, the quiet hum of democracy. Tonight, she didn’t trust any of it.
At least three people were dead—one of them a Department of Homeland Security agent and another a Diplomatic Security Service agent Vaughn herself had worked with. That was something she couldn’t shake.
Not that men with badges couldn’t go bad.
They could. Money, ideology, blackmail, grievance—every agency in Washington was vulnerable to the same old human weaknesses.
One bad apple was absolutely tragic and disgraceful.
Two bad apples—in separate, but adjacent barrels—went from looking disgraceful to looking coordinated.
If the people behind the attacks had been able to reach into multiple agencies, there was no telling how long and how powerful their arms were.
By helping Erin and Connor, she had probably just vaulted herself from observer to participant.
And at that point, the jump from participant to target wasn’t much of a jump at all.
She brushed her hand against the outside of her coat, confirming that her sidearm was still right where it should be. She was taking nothing for granted.
Moving quickly across H Street, she headed for the Hay-Adams hotel. The warm glow from its windows was bleeding softly into the mist. The sooner she got inside, the sooner she could begin unpacking what was going on.
She knew Jennifer Fields only slightly, but slightly had been enough. Several years earlier, Fields had interviewed her during an FBI counterintelligence investigation involving a possible access agent somewhere in the wider White House orbit.
An access agent wasn’t a spy in the classic sense—someone photographing documents or carrying secrets out in a briefcase.
An access agent was more dangerous in certain ways—someone positioned to open doors, someone who could help a hostile foreign intelligence service get close to the people and places that mattered.
Vaughn had not been a suspect. She had been one of several people quietly debriefed because her job put her close enough to notice things—faces, routines, behavior, and people who seemed comfortable where they shouldn’t have been.
The interview had lasted less than an hour, but it had made an impression.
Fields had been younger than Vaughn expected, sharper than a lot of the agents she had dealt with, and almost impossible to read.
She had asked precise questions, listened more than she spoke, and given away nothing.
Vaughn had left the interview with two impressions—first, that Jennifer Fields was smart as hell, and second, that lying to her would have been a very big mistake.
As she approached its semicircular drive, the Hay-Adams loomed out of the mist, elegant and watchful. Vaughn entered through the large front doors, thankful to be out of the cold. Crossing the elegant lobby, she made her way downstairs to the Off the Record bar.
The bar, as always, was dimly lit. With its low ceilings and dark wood paneling, it was a room built for secrets. At this hour on a Sunday, the crowd was thin. More political caricatures lined the walls than there were customers sitting at the bar.
Vaughn stepped in and took a table with a view of the entrance. When the waiter came over, she ordered a club soda. Fields arrived right on time five minutes later.
The FBI agent came in quietly, expert at not drawing attention to herself. Not an easy task for such an attractive woman.
She was of medium height, had her dark hair pulled back, and wore a black wool coat. Her eyes found Vaughn almost immediately. Crossing the room, she slid into the chair opposite her.
“A Secret Service request for an off-books meeting on a Sunday night,” she said. “That’s either very good for me or very bad for you.”
“Bad for everyone,” Vaughn replied.
The waiter returned with her club soda. Fields ordered a bourbon, neat.
Once he was gone, she looked at Vaughn and said, “You look like hell.”
“It’s been a long day.”
“I figured. White House still running full tilt over Taiwan?”
Vaughn nodded
“That isn’t why I’m here, though, is it?”
“No.”
The bourbon arrived. Fields waited until the waiter was gone and then, taking a sip, asked, “What kind of problem are we here to discuss?”
Vaughn didn’t answer right away. She conducted a slow scan of the room before settling back on Fields. “Three dead bodies. Maybe more before this is over.”
Fields’s expression remained unchanged. “Go on.”
“Two men broke into an apartment in Adams Morgan last night to kill a former United States Marine. Suppressed weapons. No phones. No identification. He killed them first.”
Fields said nothing.
“This morning, another man, also looking for the Marine, forced entry into a second location and threatened to kill the home’s owner.”
“And?”
“That assailant’s dead too.”
Fields’s eyes stayed on hers. “Who was the homeowner?”
“She’s a member of the National Security Council staff.”
That got the smallest shift out of her. “Who killed the intruder? The Marine or the NSC staffer?”
“The Marine.”
Fields wasn’t surprised. “How’d the intruder know to look for the Marine at her house?”
“They were engaged.”
“So they have a history together. Where are they now?”
“Some place safe.”
Fields took another sip of bourbon. “You’re being careful.”
“I have to be.”
“Why come to me? Sounds like this is a job for Metro PD.”
“No,” Vaughn replied. “This stopped being a job for Metro when federal ties started surfacing at both scenes.”
That landed. “What kind of federal ties?” she asked, setting down her glass.
“Of the two dead men at the Marine’s apartment, one of them I recognized as DSS. We worked a joint detail together a while back. The dead man at the NSC staffer’s house was carrying DHS credentials.”
For the first time since she had sat down, Jennifer Fields went completely still. “Those are extremely serious accusations.”
“Now you know why I asked you for an off-books meeting on a Sunday night.”
Fields leaned back slightly, her large brown eyes studying Vaughn. “These are the same two crime scenes that have been all over the news today?”
Vaughn nodded. “I’m not sure how the federal connection hasn’t leaked yet. But it will. And when it does, that’s going to be a shitstorm.”
Fields agreed. “You said you recognized one of the men. Does that mean you’ve got photos?”
“Not just photos,” said Vaughn as she reached into her coat and removed her phone. Placing it on the table between them, she then took out a folded ziplock bag and laid that beside it.
“You came prepared.”
“Because I trust you.”
Fields appreciated her confidence. Unfolding the bag, she saw the DHS ID belonging to a Special Agent Mark Scofield.
“Jesus,” she said quietly. “If that credential isn’t genuine, it’s an exceptionally good counterfeit.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Vaughn.
Fields placed the DHS credential back on the table and picked up Vaughn’s phone. Swiping through the photos, she studied the dead men from Connor’s apartment. “Which one is the DSS agent?”
“The one closest to the door.”
“Do you remember his name?”
Vaughn shook her head.
Setting the phone down, Fields folded her hands around her bourbon glass. “Okay,” she said. “Walk me through it again. Slowly.”
“The Marine’s name is Connor Jameson. The NSC staffer is Erin Delaney.
Last night two men hit Jameson’s apartment in Adams Morgan.
He shot and killed them both. This morning, a man identifying himself as Special Agent Mark Scofield from DHS forced his way into Erin Delaney’s home.
He claimed to be there looking for Jameson.
When he pulled his weapon and threatened to kill Erin, Jameson shot and killed him. ”
“What set all of this in motion?” Fields asked. “Why were they looking for him?”
“That’s the part I’m still trying to get my arms around. Jameson has been making lots of noise about Taiwan. He believes China wants the U.S. and its allies fixated there while it moves against a more important objective somewhere else.”
“What else do you know about him?”
“Multiple combat tours and PTSD issues,” said Vaughn. “He was working at a think tank, but got let go. Since then, he’s been blogging and podcasting—specifically about China.”
“Do you think he got close to something?”
“Close enough. Why else try to kill him? Who has the ability to compromise federal agents and run targeted violence at an American citizen?”
Fields was quiet for a moment. “That’s the part that bothers me the most. Could a criminal network do pieces of this? Maybe. But using Feds? At that level, you’re talking about a state actor.”
“Which brings us right back to China,” Vaughn stated.
“If this is Beijing,” said Fields, “then we’re not just looking at a murder plot. We’re looking at an active penetration of the United States government.”