CHAPTER 77
The FBI’s Strategic Operations Center,
Washington, D.C.
“We have a new name that has surfaced,” said a mid-level special agent who had arrived late for the meeting and just joined the group around the table.
“Who?” The director, like everyone in his operation center, now starting a third day without sleep.
“A Chechen.”
That caught Tom Pope’s attention. They’d had virtually no Chechens on their watch lists until Boston. The Chechens hated Russia, not America. Now, the world’s lists were all being revised. For good reason.
“Abu Umarov.” The agent went on to say that the Bureau’s G-cell in the Strategic Information and Operation Center had picked up the name in randomly monitored cell traffic.
“I know that name. Wasn’t he connected to Yousef?” Pope could afford to be direct. His stock had gone sky-high within the Bureau. CNN was running with the lead story that the two stolen nuclear weapons had been retrieved in a lightning raid in Pakistan, but the world never knew how close it came to Chicago being vaporized. “I thought they were all dead in that valley.”
“Excuse me, sir.” At that moment, Garland Sebeck stood at the door to the conference room. He looked much like someone who was holding on to a secret.
“Mr. Director, may I go talk to my assistant?” Tom Pope rolled his chair back.
“Sure, go ahead, but let me know what you find out.”
Tom Pope walked out into the hallway. He still had his coffee mug in hand. He used the mug to point to a smaller secretary’s office across the way, its occupant missing for the moment. Pope closed the door behind Sebeck.
“There’s something.” Sebeck had a red folder marked TOP SECRET. “This is from one of our field agents stationed in Guam.”
As Pope read the report, he thought of something. “You remember Chantilly?”
“Sure, your IT buddy.” Sebeck had jibed his boss on more than one occasion about Pope’s “pet geek.”
“Did you see that last report he e-mailed yesterday?”
“The traffic from that computer at Langley?”
“There was one e-mail to a BlackBerry in New York. It mentioned two names.”
Sebeck smiled.
“Yeah, the names Scott and Parker.”
“Scott was that Brit on the conference call.”
“Yes, he was.”
“Let’s get Chantilly to trace the BlackBerry. My guess is that it connects back to Langley.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem.”
“There were some independents. I saw an intel report several years ago. Killers for hire. The suspicion was that they were CIA-connected.”
“Let me guess?”
“Robert Tranthan.”
“Yes.”
“And we need to ask Mr. Scott how we can find Parker.” Tom Pope looked back at the red folder, flipping the sheet within. The report recorded a detailed interview. “I knew it.” As Pope continued to read, his face started turning red. “I goddamn knew it!”