Chapter 52
Stuart found the building with difficulty, though it was in central Washington on a busy street.
Apparently, the people who worked in it treasured their privacy because nothing was marked.
The building itself was nameless, unlike the rest along K Street, almost all with PR-generated images of corporate ambition.
The lobby was guarded by stern men who left little doubt they were armed and would tolerate nothing even slightly suspicious.
There was no fancy directory on the metal walls. Cameras watched every move.
What do you expect from the CIA? Though the agency could never be mentioned.
If the destination had to be referred to, it was simply SES, but Stuart knew not to ask about the acronym.
He had quickly learned to ask as few questions as possible because the answers, when given, were usually vague and misleading.
As he waited for an elevator, he was amused by the thought that it would be difficult to create a more sinister and suspicious place for a CIA hideout in downtown D.C.
Only a glowing sign in the atrium announcing Langley East would have been more revealing.
But what the hell? He didn’t care. He had been informed by his handler, also his soon-to-be bride, that they would not be meeting at HQ in Langley.
The reasoning was, typically, vague, but had something to do with the fact that he, Stuart Nash, was not an employee, a real member of the team, a genuine spook who had been trained and taken oaths and all that.
He finally made it to the fourth floor, with two escorts in matching cheap black suits, and was handed over to Nyall Leblanc. They walked to a small room where Freddie and Dunbar, the “dentists,” were waiting with smiles. Another dental exam. Leblanc left them for a few minutes.
“How are your implants?” Dunbar asked. “Sit here.”
Stuart took a seat and became tense as Dunbar moved closer with a tiny flashlight in one hand and a dental instrument in the other.
“They’re fine,” he said. “Still a little sore, but getting better.”
Hovering, Freddie asked, “And any trouble chewing on your right side?”
“No.”
Dunbar said, “Let’s activate.” He chomped twice as if Stuart, a captive chimpanzee, wasn’t sure how to properly chomp.
“Sure.” Stuart did so without opening his mouth. Both technicians jerked their heads and looked at a large screen on the wall. It held a green grid of city streets, with yellow and orange lines running everywhere. Suddenly, a red dot began flashing with a steady beep.
“Gotcha!” Freddie said with excitement. “It’s working. Corner of 14th and K Streets.”
For fifteen seconds the three of them gawked at the screen as electromagnetic pulses left Stuart’s mouth and shot upward at the speed of light through concrete, steel, glass, and thinning air to a drone waiting patiently above.
The drone relayed the signal seven miles above the city to a satellite that instantly pegged the location and sent the signal back to earth.
Each beep from Stuart’s teeth took less than three seconds to make the trip and return to the monitor on the wall.
He was in too deep to worry about radiation and gum cancer and a dozen other concerns. In just a few short weeks he would be rid of the bugs in his teeth and back to normal, or at least that’s what the team was planning.
“Perfect,” Dunbar said with unabashed satisfaction.
“Brilliant,” Freddie said, with great pride.
“Deactivate,” Dunbar said, and Stuart clicked hard twice. They watched the screen as the flashing red signal slowly faded away.
“You’re doing great, Stuart,” Dunbar said, suppressing his excitement.
“Can I have a look?” Dunbar asked as he moved in with gloved hands, holding the flashlight and tiny pickax. Stuart opened his mouth wide, endured a few harmless probes, and relaxed when Dunbar withdrew. “Perfect, just perfect.”
Stuart would not have been surprised if the two had begun high-fiving each other.
They took Stuart down the hall a few doors to another room where Rae Claire was seated at a table and having a chat with Nyall Leblanc.
They had an identical screen on the wall and had watched the signals.
“Congratulations,” Leblanc said. The technicians were all smiles, barely concealing their self-satisfaction.
It struck Nash as somewhat odd that they were so delighted with the success of the bugs in his teeth. They had explained to him that they had used them before, with great success. Perhaps there had been failures, lapses they chose not to talk about.
At any rate, Dunbar and Freddie left the room.
—
Nyall Leblanc had not informed Rae Claire, nor Stuart, of the ransom demand. So they did not know the gang was threatening to start killing hostages in the near future. The strategy had been hotly debated several times in Trevor Keefe’s office.
Keefe, on one side, wanted to keep the ransom plot away from Rae Claire’s operation.
Her team would have nothing to do with handing over the money or collecting the hostages.
That deal would either be green-lighted or rejected by the White House.
Rae Claire was focused on planting a hostage who would lead them to the other three.
Hopefully soon enough to allow a rescue and an apprehension of the terrorists.
Dexter Maceas and others argued that it was foolish to send Stuart Nash in as a volunteer hostage when his captors were executing other hostages, or at least threatening to.
There was a good chance the entire operation would blow up, with casualties.
If the truth surfaced, the fallout would be brutal and unsustainable.
Maceas wanted to at least brief Rae Claire and Nash on the ransom demand and get their reaction.
Aborting their operation and paying the ransom was the safer route at the moment, if anything could be considered safe.
The problem was the White House was holding a hard line against negotiating with terrorists.
Not surprisingly, it came down to politics.