“I received the countdown watch along with a million dollars in a numbered Cayman Island bank account. My job was to keep my contact updated on what was being done inside the NSA regarding certain subjects.”
“What subjects?”
“Any NSA surveillance of senior government officials, military generals or major defense contractors,”
“Any specific names?”
“No. Just anybody who fit those categories.”
“The countdown watch. What is it counting down to?” Jake asked.
She leaned forward slightly. “They refer to it as ‘the event.’ The true nature of ‘the event’ was not explained to me, but at one time my contact referred to it as Ellie, and said that only members of the Phoenix Organization would survive.”
She’s thinking the name is some kind of code word. If no one survives except the members of the Phoenix Organization, it’s not Ellie, it’s ELE. An Extermination Level Event.
“Who is your contact?”
She shook her head slightly. “No names were ever used, so I don’t know. I actually talked to two different people. The first person I had never seen or heard before. He recruited me and gave me orders. When I had something that was very important, I spoke with a second person.”
“And this second person you recognized?”
“Maybe, I can’t be sure.” She glanced around the room again. “At one time, early on, I tried to run the phone number through the system. You know, just out of curiosity. It was unidentifiable.”
“Would the person have known about the check on the phone?”
“I doubt it. The phone was off at the time, and the burner phone changes once a week.”
“So who do you think this person is?”
She pursed her lips and breathed out. “I don’t want to accuse anyone. I just have a suspicion.”
“Based on what?”
“The sound of his voice, the tone, cadence, word choice, pauses, the minor mispronunciation of certain words.”
“And you’ve heard this person before?”
“I think so, yes.” She put her arms on the metal table and leaned a little forward again.
“Who did it sound like?”
She paused and breathed deeply a few times. Jake waited patiently.
“If you question him, or go after him in any way, he’s going to know. They’ll find me and kill me.”
“We can protect you.”
“I don’t think you can. They have people everywhere, even inside all of the government agencies. If you’re thinking Witness Protection, forget it. The Phoenix Organization has full access. I wouldn’t last ten minutes out there.”
Jake and Honi looked at each other.
“You, I and Pettigrew are the only people who know where she is. What if she stays here?” Honi asked.
“Sylvia, do you have any reason to think or suspect that Pettigrew is connected to the Phoenix Organization?” Jake asked.
“No,” she said firmly.
Honi turned to Jake. “Let me talk with Pettigrew, I’ll be right back.” Honi left the room.
“If we can keep you safe, will you tell me who you think this person might be?”
Sylvia looked down at the recorder. “I don’t want any evidence tying me to this.”
Jake reached over and turned off the recorder. “It’s just you, me and Agent Badger.”
Honi came back in. “Pettigrew has adjusted the records to show Sylvia was questioned and released. He has her swiping out that afternoon. He also has a single high security cell in the far back of the office. She can stay there. It’s not the greatest, but it’s safe.”
Sylvia fidgeted with her fingernails again, stopped and looked up.
“Who do you think it is?” Jake asked.
“Senator Thornton.”
“Majority leader and Chairman of the Finance Committee?” Honi asked.
“Yes. He also sits on the Appropriations Committee.”
Jake and Honi leaned back in their seats. That would make Senator Thornton almost untouchable.
“We know you accessed the data in the new project down in B6,” Honi said. “Who did you tell?”
“Nobody. I didn’t understand the data. I needed some kind of context, which I didn’t have, before I told anybody.”
“Were you listening in on a phone in Fort Belvoir, Virginia?” Honi asked.
“No.”
“Do you have any idea who might have been doing that?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Okay,” Jake said. “One last question. Where were you supposed to go, or what were you supposed to do when the count-down watch reached zero?”
“At the twelve hour mark, we were to receive a final go message. I don’t understand it all, but there was some question as to whether the Event was actually going to take place or not. If there was no go message, the event wasn’t going to happen and we didn’t need to do anything or go anywhere. If the go message came, I was supposed to go to a place in the mountains of West Virginia, not too far from here. I can give you that location. It’s the only one I have.”
“Yes, I’ll need that location. This is what we’re going to do,” Jake said. “You’re not going to be able to use the money in the Cayman account, but it can still help you. If you give me the account number and the passcode, I’ll have an undercover FBI agent, who looks like you, empty the account, then use your phony ID and take a flight to a country with no extradition agreement with the US. She’ll disappear from there. The Phoenix Organization will think you are gone. When this is over, we’ll make a deal with you that you can live with, agreed?”
“Thank you,” Sylvia said quietly.
Jake and Honi returned to B6, area 4, of the NSA building.
“Hey, Brett, I need you to add Senator Thronton’s phones to the project, see what burner phones are being used nearby, and don’t breathe a word of his involvement to anybody.”
“You got it.”
“Where are we in the new project?”
“We are at eighteen layers deep and over twelve million connections. I hope you guys have some plan for sorting all this data out, otherwise, we’re looking at years.”
“Yeah,” Jake said. “I’ve got some ideas, but I want all of the data in the system first. I don’t want to miss something important. We just learned that the burner cell phones are swapped out once a week, so can you figure that in, based on GPS locations?”
“Sure can.”
Honi’s phone chirped.
“Badger.” She looked at Jake. “Okay, thanks.” She disconnected.
“Ken Bartholomew found the phony log at Fort Hood. He says the warhead was taken fifteen days ago. Stafford is interrogating people. He’ll probably be there all night.”
“Alright,” Jake said. “We could start interrogating General Teague and see what we can find out.”
“You don’t think Stafford would mind?”
“We can tie him in by secure phone.”
“That we can. Let’s go.”
Honi called Stafford on the way and had him put their names on the gate pass list for Fort Belvoir. When they arrived, they entered the CID building and asked that General Teague be brought to an interview room.
“General Teague has been transferred to a more secure facility,” the officer in charge replied.
“Which facility?” Jake asked.
“I didn’t recognize the facility designation. Since it was high security, I didn’t think I was supposed to know what it was.”
“You have the transfer order?”
“Right here.” He pulled the order from a drawer and gave it to Jake.
“This order is signed by Secretary of Defense Cooper,” Jake stated.
“Yes, sir, it is.”
“Did you verify the order?”
“I didn’t have to.”
“Why not?”
“Because Secretary Cooper was the one who handed me the order.”