After Matt left the pharmacy, he walked south on 2nd, head down, eyes on his new phone, his relaxed body language deliberately incompatible with that of a fugitive who’d be anxious to avoid observation.
On his first call to Arlo, it took Matt less than a minute to relay the basics of the situation: A government agency that might or might not be the Department of Homeland Security had tied him to Caparelli via the death of Laura Hart. They considered that death a possible homicide committed by Matt as payment for Caparelli’s help in clearing Matt’s name in the investigation of his partner.
He had Arlo’s full attention as he went on to quickly relate how two agents, probably from the same agency, had just tried and failed to capture him. That there’d be more coming soon, likely within minutes, and that he couldn’t evade the cameras for long.
“Where are you now?”
“You understand that if they’re not listening to this call in real time, they will within ten minutes.”
“Shit.”
“Can you get me out of this? Or do I run?”
“Call me back in five minutes.”
“They’ll be listening then.”
“They won’t be the only ones.” With that cryptic remark, Arlo cut the call.
Caidin scanned the buildings on the street, chose the tallest one, and stepped into its glossy lobby, bright with glass and pristine marble. Instead of heading for the bulky guard in a navy blazer who sat behind a vast, bleached-wood counter, he strode confidently to the building directory, locating a law office with five partners in its name. Reception was on the eighteenth floor. Odds were it would be huge, meaning his pursuers would have to question a lot of people.
He turned and walked back to the guard, keeping his head down as he pulled out his wallet. He gave his real name, handed over his driver’s license, said he had an appointment with his lawyer at the five-name firm.
The guard didn’t ask which one, signed him in, then turned back to watching the row of security monitors on his side of the counter. A quick glance told Matt he would have been recorded entering the lobby. It would only take minutes before Fort Meade’s massive computer system identified him. By now, it’d be processing video from every camera in DC.
He pressed the UP button on the wall of elevators, anticipating that the first reaction to his identification would be a phone call to the security desk. The guard would remember him, check the register, read out his name, and say what he was doing in the building—going up to see his lawyer.
That should get a good response, Matt thought.
A melodic chime announced the arrival of an elevator. Matt stepped aside to let a half dozen passengers get out, then joined them as they headed across the lobby, all the while keeping his head down as if checking messages on his phone. Just as he reached the glass door that led into the building’s coffee shop, he heard the guard’s phone ring.
Matt checked his watch, called Arlo.
* * *
Arlo handed the phone to Caparelli. “You’re on.”
Caparelli spoke fast. “No names, don’t make it easy for the machines. You know who this is. Let me hear your voice.”
“They’re hearing it, too.”
“Our favorite restaurant. You remember, right?” It was a long shot, Caparelli knew, but how else could he speak in code to someone he barely knew?
“Amazing. I do remember. That’s—”
“Stop,” Caparelli interrupted. “Can you get there from where you are?”
“Won’t be a problem.”
“An independent’s going to meet you. He’s heavily armed. Do you recall the challenge and response?”
“I do.”
“I’ll see you when you get here.”
Caparelli handed the phone back to Arlo.
“You think he understood?” Arlo asked.
“She would have.”
* * *
In the DHS command center, two minutes after the call had been captured and decrypted, Lomax had heard the whole conversation, rapidly issued a string of commands, beginning with Caparelli’s credit card records. “Run them against Caidin’s. Pull up the names of any restaurants those two visited in common.”
“Their favorite restaurant?” Ames asked. “Far as we know, as of last week, they’d never been in contact.”
“There’s a world of hurt in ‘far as we know.’ Then again, it could also be a code.”
“Well, wherever Caidin is now, we sure as hell know where he plans to go.”
“If I’ve learned anything in this business,” Lomax said, “it’s there ain’t anything that’s sure.”
* * *
It wasn’t a restaurant, of course.
Caparelli had raised Laura since she was seven, and her relationship with her Uncle Dan was as close as any child and parent. Even when she had graduated and moved from his home, they stayed close, and had made a point of having lunch together almost every Sunday afternoon. But when she had joined CROSSWIND, the nature of those meals had changed. No discussion of any work-related topics could take place in public. Instead of the small deli in Georgetown where they had met so regularly, lunch was now something that Caparelli ordered in to serve in his own kitchen, where they could talk without being concerned about others overhearing. Laura had made a joke of it: Uncle Dan’s Kitchen was their favorite restaurant.
Caidin didn’t know how he knew that; knew exactly how he knew that.
He had shared Laura’s mind and memories of her last day of life. But not her last day of existence. That word again: impossible. His conscious mind wanted to reject his knowledge because there was no rational way he could possess it. But in the same way, he knew where Caparelli lived, the townhouse in Georgetown, ten miles away, past hundreds, if not thousands of cameras. There was no way to evade them, so that left only one strategy: He’d have to swamp them.
Matt walked onto the street and hailed a cab.
A minute later, he slipped into the back of a Yellow Taxi whose security shield and reinforced front seat gave scant room for his legs. He leaned close to the payment slot, well within range of the camera installed above the front windshield. “I need to pick up my motorcycle,” he told the driver, and said he’d direct him to the parking lot where he’d left it.
Matt estimated it would be three minutes before DHS knew which cab he was in. Seconds counted, but it might be long enough.
* * *
Ames drove while Lomax tracked the progress of the search on his encrypted phone. No common restaurant had turned up in the credit card records of the two men. But Caidin had been picked up on a security camera in an office building, and had signed in to visit his lawyer. Not good. Agents were already on their way to the law firm, even though Caidin’s bank records revealed no payments to it.
Two minutes later, another alert came from SPARROW. The target was in a cab, miles away from the law firm. As Ames battled traffic, Lomax redeployed the agents at the law firm to their next best lead. The cab driver had dropped his fare at the entrance to an underground lot where Caidin said he had a motorcycle.
Though another data search found no record of his ever owning one, it did confirm he’d completed the police motorcycle course as a condition of employment, so Lomax set his first set of agents to tracking every bike that left the underground lot. It would have to be a manual task, since facial recognition was blocked by helmet visors. At the same time, he dispatched another team to check the license plates of any other motorcycle parked in the garage.
Then the target was spotted in another cab. Two minutes after that, in a Metro station.
Lomax had had enough. Caidin was playing the system in an attempt to strain the capability of DHS to stay on top of him. “Forget all the individual sightings,” he ordered his technicians in the command center. “What’s his overall direction? Where’s he heading?”
The answer came back quickly: Georgetown. Too general, but at least it provided focus. “Put Georgetown cameras in the SPARROW priority queue,” Lomax ordered. Then he redirected half his scattered teams to converge on Georgetown, while, with a nod to Ames, he sent the other half to 610 E Street, southwest: CROSSWIND.
* * *
One hour later, twenty-four agents covered every vehicle and pedestrian entry point to the office block that included CROSSWIND’s main facility.
Lomax and Ames remained in their vehicle across from the parking garage entrance as chase cars reported a black Chevy Suburban, retrofitted with armor and blackened windows, speeding toward their location. The driver was not identifiable, the passenger in the back seat a silhouette.
Lomax readied his forces to intercept, reminding them that Caparelli had informed Caidin that the driver was heavily armed.
When the Suburban was two minutes out, Lomax and Ames exited their vehicle, crossed to the parking garage entrance. Other agents had already arranged to have the metal garage door closed.
Across the street, two snipers hunched in position.
The Suburban rounded the corner, obeying traffic lights, and Lomax stepped forward, motioning its driver toward the curb near the blocked entrance.
The Suburban stopped. Its motor running.
Lomax radioed his team. “Give him time to assess the situation and do the right thing. Any phone calls coming from inside the vehicle?”
A technician at the DHS command center responded there was no indication of any communication by phone, radio, or Wi-Fi.
Two minutes passed.
Lomax sighed, told the others to be ready, then walked toward the Suburban. He approached to the driver’s window, tapped on the tinted glass with his badge.
Too many seconds later, the window slid down.
The driver was young, lean. Black T-shirt, no shoulder holster. “Yessir?”
“Hands on the wheel,” Lomax said. He waved his hand to signal his people to be ready to surround the vehicle in case Caidin bolted. “I’m going to need your passenger to step outside.”
“Whatever.” The driver turned to the back seat. “Door’s unlocked.”
The back passenger door opened and Lomax stepped back, hand sliding inside his jacket.
An older woman with a briefcase got out. “What’s this about?” she asked.
Lomax swore, pushed her aside, checked inside, but she was the only passenger.
“Ames, the back.”
The Secret Service agent swung open the Suburban’s tailgate. “Nada.”
It was then that Lomax saw Caparelli step out from a lobby entrance. “Lomax,” he said. “You lost?”
“Where is he?”
To his credit, Caparelli dropped the game. “Already inside.”
“I have a warrant for his arrest.”
“And I have a restraining order. National security.”
“I am national security.”
“You’re Homeland. CROSSWIND is NSA. You really want to get into that shooting war?”
Lomax ranked his options. They ranged from strangling Caparelli to outright gunplay to get his man. He had twenty-four agents on the street. His target was behind a few doors, up a few flights of stairs.
Caparelli seemed to read his mind. “Remember where you are. Civilian streets. And the nation’s most effective intelligence agency isn’t so poorly defended that your thugs can just shoot their way inside.”
Lomax took the word “thugs” as the insult it was. But he didn’t respond in kind.
“There’s no need for this.”
“I know.”
“We should be cooperating.”
Caparelli gave a tired smile. “I’m afraid we have different definitions for that word. I cooperate by sharing intelligence. You try to control it.”
Lomax bristled, but kept his tone calm. “If you make me force the issue, I will get whatever warrant it takes to set yours aside and get me through that door.”
Caparelli responded just as evenly. “Your choice. But when they hold the congressional hearings, I’ll remind them that when CROSSWIND obtained intel that was so time sensitive we had to share it with you without going through channels, you were so concerned with coming after us that you did nothing to save the president.”
Caparelli turned away to reenter the CROSSWIND building.
Beside Lomax, Ames spoke quietly. “If we’re going to take him, this is the moment.”
Lomax felt his finger twitch, as if it were on a trigger. “No. We do this by the book. CROSSWIND has to run by the same rules we all do. And Caparelli just gave me the excuse to make sure it does.”