Bravo and Charlie nodded.
“Gentlemen,” Claire said, “there’s something you need to understand. The opposition will have men just as capable as you are. Do not underestimate them in any way.”
Claire couldn’t tell the agents that they were going up against the sentinels from the Third Infantry Regiment. That was information that Dillon didn’t want anyone else to know. But it was important for these agents to understand how lethal their opponents were. This was going to be like pitting two boxers against each other that were perfectly matched in every way: size, reach, conditioning, and experience. The advantage Claire had was that the other side didn’t know the NSA was involved.
At least she hoped they didn’t.
“This vest,” Alice said, “will stop anything smaller than a fifty-caliber round.”
DeMarco didn’t know what to say to that. Gee, thanks didn’t seem right. He just tugged on the straps to tighten the vest.
“And you’ll be wired and you’ll have an ear bud,” Alice said.
“A what?”
“You’ll be wired so we’ll be able to hear whatever you and Hopper say to each other, and you’ll have a nearly invisible communication device in your ear so you’ll be able to take orders.”
“Who’ll be giving the orders?” DeMarco said.
“It doesn’t matter. You just need to know that whoever’s talking to you is a person you better obey. If you want to live.”
Alice was a bundle of joy.
She turned to leave the room, but before she did she said, “Wait here. Someone will be here in a minute to hook up the com gear. And then Dillon wants to talk to you.”
Dillon?
Alice, DeMarco thought, you just fucked up. Dillon had to be Richard Burton, the white-haired man with the expensive clothes. Yeah, the slick son of a bitch looked like a Dillon.
A young guy who could have worked for the Geek Squad at Best Buy came into the room next. He told DeMarco to remove his belt and gave him another belt; then he stuck an American flag lapel pin onto DeMarco’s jacket. Lastly, he jammed a little clear plastic thing-amajig into DeMarco’s left ear and made sure all the stuff worked.
Two minutes after the geek finished, the old man walked into the room. Once again he was dressed immaculately and, just as he’d been the first time DeMarco had seen him, he seemed completely relaxed and appeared to be enjoying himself tremendously.
“Are you all set, Joe?” Dillon asked.
“Yeah.”
“Good.” Dillon handed a piece of paper to DeMarco. “Here’s what you’ll say when you meet Hopper. You don’t have to say all that verbatim, just use it for guidance.”
DeMarco looked at what was written on the paper. “I’m not saying this,” he said.
“You’re not saying what?”
“I’m not going to say I want money from these guys to stay quiet.”
“Why not? You need to give Hopper some reason why you’re pursuing the case and why you haven’t talked to the authorities about what you know. A payoff is a plausible reason.”
“Yeah, well, you think of another plausible reason,” DeMarco said, “because I’m not gonna let you assholes record me asking for a bribe. All the rest of this stuff, I’ll say, but not that.”
Dillon nodded his head as if DeMarco’s demand was reasonable but then he said, “The phone call you received from Afghanistan the other night. We analyzed the transmission again, and it appears the person who called you was a CIA agent named Angela DeCapria-your girlfriend, like you said.”
“So what?” DeMarco said, not liking where this conversation was going.
“Well, Joe, I don’t know if you know this but Ms. DeCapria’s in an extremely vulnerable position right now. She’s on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border near Kandahar posing as an aide worker for an NGO.”
“How the hell do you know where she is and what she’s doing?” DeMarco said.
“I think you’ll agree that’s a rather silly question, Joe, when you think about what the NSA does.”
“Then what’s your point? Are you threatening to reveal what she’s doing over there if I don’t do what you say?”
“Of course not, Joe. I’d never do that. But as I told you, Charles Bradford is chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and he could find her just as easily as I did. And then, if Bradford so desired, a mistake could be made; someone might tell the wrong person that Ms. DeCapria isn’t who she claims to be.”
Bullshit. He was threatening Angela.
“Listen to me, Dillon,” DeMarco said, and Dillon’s right eyebrow elevated in surprise.
“How do you know my name?” Dillon said.
DeMarco saw no reason to tell him that Alice had let it slip. Instead he said, “You’re not the only guy who can find things out. I know your name and I know where you live. And if anything happens to Angela DeCapria, I’ll kill you, Dillon, and that’s a promise.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Dillon said, but there was a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. DeMarco could tell Dillon considered it more likely he’d be struck by a meteorite than killed by DeMarco.
“Now back to the script,” Dillon said. “Are you clear on what you need to say?”
“Yeah,” DeMarco said. “I’m clear.”
33
Dillon was worried.
He was sitting with Claire in the operations room at Fort Meade. Four of Claire’s technicians were in the room as well, poised in front of monitors, wearing headsets. There was a satellite image of the rendezvous site on one large plasma screen. On another screen was a computer-generated map of the rendezvous site, and data from the satellite and information provided by Alice’s spotters were being continuously added to the map so that Dillon would have real-time information regarding the locations of all the players. Blinking green lights on the map showed the location of Alice and her spotters; red lights showed the location of the three agents assigned to protect DeMarco; yellow lights were being reserved for the opposition. A solitary blinking blue light was DeMarco.
Although he was thirty-five miles from Tuckahoe Park in Falls Church, Dillon was the wizard behind the curtain. He could control the satellite overhead; he could direct the actions of all his people. He could hear everything Alice said to her team and everything they said to her, and he would be able to hear everything Hopper said to DeMarco. Yet in spite of all the marvelous technology at his fingertips and all the clever people helping him, Dillon was worried.
Dillon dealt in worst-case scenarios. One such scenario was that the man who had directed the operation that killed Paul Russo would bring in a team-probably more sentinels from Fort Myer-and his team would either kill or kidnap DeMarco during his meeting with Hopper. But no team had shown up and the meeting was scheduled to begin in fifteen minutes. Which brought Dillon to the most worrisome worst-case scenario: maybe the opposition team had shown up. Maybe they had infiltrated the rendezvous site and Alice’s people hadn’t seen them. That seemed impossible, but…
“Alice,” Dillon said into his mike, “tell DeMarco to go stand on the pitcher’s mound.”
Roger that.
Dillon was hoping that when DeMarco took up his position on the pitcher’s mound that the opposition team would give themselves away-assuming there was an opposition team. Alice immediately transmitted his order.
DeMarco, go to the pitcher’s mound. Alpha, White is moving into position.
Alpha was the agent hidden near the bleachers at the ball field, the man assigned to protect DeMarco from Hopper if necessary. He and the other two agents could only hear Alice; they were not able to hear Dillon nor would they be able to hear DeMarco talking to Hopper. The original plan had been to wait until the opposition team was in place, and then send Bravo and Charlie into the woods, placing them in positions where they could neutralize the opposition if needed-but again, there appeared to be no opposition.