"Have you ever met any of his navy friends?"
"I think so. I don't really know. He doesn't really talk about it much. He said it was a waste of time…"
"Eight years is a long time to spend wasting time," said Edwards.
"I guess, but…he got to live in Europe, and…"
"Have you noticed anything strange about him lately?"
"No."
"Calls coming into his phone at odd times?"
"No. Not that I can remember," she said.
Edwards studied her closely. She had emerged from the office reenergized in a fresh outfit, peppy and uplifted, but now she looked glum again. He would continue to pepper her with meaningless questions for another twenty or thirty minutes, occasionally casting a few well-crafted questions designed to raise serious doubts about the man she married, and ultimately break down her natural instinct to protect him. A few drinks should seal the deal on Daniel Petrovich…a few more drinks would ensure the hotel room he reserved at the Old Port Hilton Garden Inn wouldn't go to waste.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
A dull murmur had blanketed the operations center for nearly twenty minutes, as agents simply ran their last assigned tasks into the ground. Little to no evidence was found throughout the day at any of the eight murder sites along the East Coast, aside from the fortuitous and purely accidental acquisition of one of their murder suspects, who was no longer in custody.
Of the two Brown River contractors captured in Silver Spring, only one was conscious, and he swore up and down that their operation was a legally sanctioned counter-terrorist operation. Of course, he had no evidence to back this claim, other than his insistence that the group's team leader had specifically briefed them prior to departing Brown River's headquarters in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Jeremy Cummings, apparent team leader for the eight men, lay dead in the Whole Foods, surrounded by forensics specialists and police officers.
The FBI raids didn't look promising either. The data processing and analysis team, led by Special Agent O'Reilly had been busy processing images from over a dozen raid locations, and Sharpe considered shifting other agents in an effort to assist them. So far, nothing immediately useful had been recovered at any of the raid sites, and the trail had gone cold for every one of the operatives on the supplied Black Flag list, except for Petrovich.
His wife had been home when Special Agent Edwards' team hit the house, and Daniel Petrovich had reported to his job earlier that day, which further supported his loose theory that Petrovich was a last minute replacement for the mental patient guy in New Hampshire. The rest of the Black Flag suspects had gone underground over a week before, taking family with them.
Sharpe flipped open his cell phone again, and tried to call Mendoza. He knew that cell phones wouldn't be allowed in the Compartmentalized Information Section, especially if they discovered a problem, but he could barely stand the suspense. Mendoza had left nearly thirty minutes earlier, and should have arrived at the Sanctum by now. He had a terrible feeling about what they would find.
Special Agent Weber called out from the communication section, one of the few busy areas in the operations center. He had never managed to leave the room earlier.
"Sir, it's Mendoza," he said, and Sharpe nearly ran across the room.
"Frank, give me some good news. The trail on Munoz has gone cold. Eight heavily armed men just vanished into thin air," he said.
"Ryan, it's bad over here. The Sanctum was breached, and the file is gone."
"Be careful what you say over the phone, Frank."
"I understand. The only one missing is the colonel in charge. Farrington. He departed the Pentagon at exactly 9:52. Looked like Hannibal Lecter got loose in that room, Ryan."
"What about Harris and Calhoun?" Sharpe said, praying they weren't dead.
"They're fine, as far as we can tell. They were each hit with about a dozen small darts, that we assume were coated with something that took them down. Keller and the Pentagon personnel are starting to come around. They weren't hit with any darts, but it's clear that something happened to them. McKie was slaughtered. Same cut we saw in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. One knife wound down through the neck, right above the collar bone," said Mendoza.
"Jesus Christ. We need to see some video. This could be Petrovich," Sharpe hissed.
"No video inside the Sanctum. Prohibited for obvious reasons. No video within the section either. Security says Farrington departed alone, and did not log any visitors into the building."
Sharpe could hear yelling beyond Agent Mendoza's voice.
"Hold on sir…they found something," said Mendoza, and Sharpe's mind entertained any possibility.
He wouldn't be surprised if they found Farrington's unconscious body, stuffed in a closet. The Black Flag file said these operatives were trained experts in disguise. His mind was spinning with possibilities when Mendoza broke the spell.
"They just found a janitor tied up in one of the closets. He was coherent enough to confirm that Farrington put him there," said Mendoza.
"This isn't good, Frank, and now we have no way of expanding the search for these operatives. Are they sure the file is gone?" Sharpe said, looking around at his own task force's agents.
"Positive. They didn't seem overly concerned about any of the personnel, until they established what happened to the file. Some kind of special response team from deep inside the Pentagon. I didn't see anyone below the rank of full colonel…hold on, Ryan…shit, I'm being told by some very serious looking gentlemen that I need to wrap this up. They've locked down the building, and that will shortly include all outgoing unsecured communications," said Mendoza.
"Stay with Harris and Calhoun, and contact me when you can. I'm gonna play the last card I have right now, and pray it gives us something," said Sharpe.
"Petrovich's wife?"
"It's all we have. Good luck over there," Sharpe said, and closed the phone.
He looked up again, and saw that O'Reilly was standing near him, waiting for him to finish. Everyone had been waiting. One of the FBI's top agents was injured in the convoy hit, and the status of two agents that had worked in this task force for over a year was unknown. He needed to address Task Force HYDRA, and redistribute priorities.
"Hold on, Dana. I'll be with you in a second," he said.
"I found something interesting," she said, and he nodded.
"Everyone! I need everyone's attention for a minute!" he said, and walked toward the front of the operations center.
Normally, it could take several minutes to quiet an active operations center, but nearly every agent had been waiting for word about Harris and Calhoun. The rumors started spreading quickly once Mendoza scrambled for the Pentagon, and when Weber uttered Mendoza's name, the place went still.
"Thank you. A couple things. First, Harris and Calhoun are fine. Nobody's sure exactly what happened to them. They were rendered unconscious, but their vitals are strong. Very similar to the convoy hit," he said, and the room broke into scattered conversation expressing relief.
"Second, the source of information used to obtain the list of suspects is gone. For now, this is it. We have to spin something out of what we already have. Suspect bank account information, phone records, scraps of paper in the bathroom trash bin. We need to be creative at every site connected with today's murders, because it is unlikely we'll be given anything beyond what we have. Because of this, I'm going to assign some of you to help process data associated with each of the raid sites. Others will be diverted to scour financial records, phone records, everything. This is what we do best. This is how we unraveled Al Qaeda's domestic financial network. We can do it again. Unfortunately, we don't have months to put this together. We need to turn something up by tomorrow."