Without hesitation, Colonel Farrington replied, "Sorry, General, no progress has been made so far, though I'm keeping a close eye on the requests myself. You'll be the first to know when the ball starts rolling."
"Sounds good, Colonel. Keep me in the loop," said General Sanderson.
"Roger that, sir. I would expect an update within the hour."
Sanderson hung up.
"Still nothing. Shit, the FBI is moving slow. I expected them to be down there already. This is the kind of shit I've always been railing about. Bureaucracy, government red tape, rules of engagement…they all have their right place and purpose, but not if you need results, and fast. I wish we had someone inside the FBI headquarters," he said to Parker.
"It's just a matter of time, sir," said Parker, as he pulled the Suburban off the Beltway at exit 177B, headed toward one of the general's "safe houses" in Alexandria, Virginia.
Less than ten miles away, Colonel Richard Farrington, United States Army, leaned back in his shitty, worn government chair, and placed the cell phone in a black nylon briefcase tucked away under his desk. Cell phones were technically off limits in his section, and if anyone saw him using it, he'd just say that he'd forgotten to leave it in the car, and received a call. No big deal, especially since he was careful to select a phone without a camera. He wasn't really worried either way, his bag received a cursory inspection upon entry and exit, and not very many people at the Pentagon were cleared for his section.
He'd been at this posting for nearly two years, biding his time, even extending his tour for another six months to give Sanderson some leeway in planning. He wouldn't need it. Either today or tomorrow, Farrington would walk out of here for the last time, and join his old battalion commander in exile.
Thirty feet away, Julio Mendez peeked through a one-inch crack between his office door and the door frame. Calling the room his office was a stretch, since it was really a janitorial supply closet, but Julio didn't care. Even the highest ranking officers and civilians sat in cubicles within the Information and Data Section. Everything was transparent, and the only true privacy came in the form of a bathroom stall, where someone could still see your shoes and hear your daily contribution to the D.C. sewer system. He may just be the janitor, but he had what nobody around here had, a private room. Two of them actually. Another small supply room lay outside of the restricted zone, where he would typically spend most of the afternoon.
He'd been spying on Colonel Farrington for two days, after seeing him hide something when he passed by the colonel's cubicle. He had pretended not to notice, singing a few lines of a song as soon as the colonel looked up at him. He had just nodded politely and pushed onward toward the next set of cubicles. Julio caught him using the phone on four separate occasions over the past few days, which seemed out of place for the colonel. He'd peeked out of his door before to spy on several nearby staff members, including the colonel, and had never seen anyone using a cell phone. He thought the Colonel might be going through a divorce, but remembered that he'd never seen any pictures indicating a relationship on desk or cubicle walls. No pictures of kids or a wife, just a few photos of the colonel and other soldiers taken in various Godforsaken parts of the world. A few military plaques commemorating distinguished service with different units, but nothing beyond that.
Julio always trusted his instincts, and they were whispering bad things about Colonel Farrington. He'd keep his eyes on this man, check his trash at night, do a full sweep of the area. If something was wrong, Julio could be the nation's first line of defense. He wasn't a military hero, but he knew a thing or two about bravery. He had burn scarring over half of his torso, compliments of Al Qaeda. He’d worked in the West Block when American Airlines Flight 77 hit the Pentagon and spewed burning jet fuel through a corridor he was cleaning.
The initial blast knocked him through an open office door, nearly into the lap of a startled Navy captain. The blast was followed by an aerosolized explosion, similar to one of the Air Force's Fuel/Air Explosive (FAE) bombs. Luckily, they were both knocked to the far wall of the office by the initial blast, because if either of them had been standing any closer to the door, they would have been vaporized like everyone else in the corridor. After extinguishing their own personal clothing fires, Julio and Captain Reynolds rushed into the hellish inferno to look for survivors. He was a true hero, well respected at the Pentagon, but his service to country didn't end on September 11, 2001. He kept a close eye on the place, because he knew the next attack would come from the inside.
"I got my eyes on you, Colonel Sanders," he said, and a stifled a laugh, now wishing he had packed some fried chicken for lunch, instead of a ham sandwich.
Chapter Twelve
Sharpe held a yellow legal pad in his left hand and squinted at his writing. The phone receiver was pressed into his right ear by his other hand. He glanced up at Agent Mendoza, seated in chair near the closed office door, and nodded quickly.
"How confident are you about Munoz's statement? If we start pushing Pentagon buttons, we need to be rock solid on our assessment. This could get ugly…real quick," said Sharpe.
"Carlisle's assessment is definitive. He walked me through the bio-feedback. Either this guy is the perfect liar, or he's telling the truth. He's a tough book to read on the outside. Impassive. No apparent signs of being rattled. But bio showed a different story when we hinted that we might render him out of the country. His vitals spiked, but he kept himself under control. This guy is a cool customer. Highly trained, somewhere, and not the kind of training his Army service record would indicate. Four years as a Field Artillery officer? We might have stumbled onto something huge here," said Agent Olson.
"I think I agree. Have Carlisle put together a package with his assessment…and yours. I want to walk through the director's door with everything I need to make a case for a deal. Once the deal is signed, we need to move fast. What do you know about General Terrence Sanderson?"
"I've never heard of him before today. I did a quick internet search. Special Ops for most of his career. Details are sketchy, but it appears that his boots touched Iranian soil during Operation Eagle Claw. Plank owner in the Delta Force community. Meteoric rise through the ranks, then a flat line. Didn't make a lot of friends on the Hill from what I could tell. He retired, or was put out to pasture in 2001. Pretty much fell off the radar. Munoz is ready to connect the dots once the deal is in place," said Olson.
"Looks like Sanderson just popped back up on the radar scope, in a big way. Keep pressing Munoz for more details. I don't know if I have enough for a blanket immunity deal. He'll probably have to sign a contingency deal, which means he'll have to show us his cards before we go to the Pentagon. If the Pentagon refuses to share, no deal," said Sharpe.
"I think he'll take the risk. The threat of being moved to a facility out of the country scared him. He really wants a deal," said Olson.
"So do I. This could be a huge break. Eight coordinated murders on the same night. I'm willing to let this guy walk if he leads us to the jackpot. Tell him we need more information to make the deal stick. I'm gonna get things rolling on my end. Good work, Heather."
"Thank you sir," she said, and Sharpe replaced the receiver on the desk phone.
"Sounds like Olson was the right agent to send to Boston," piped Mendoza from his chair.
"She's one of the best investigators in the FBI. She was my first phone call after waking you up this morning. So, do we know anything else about Mr. Munoz?"