Jarvis looked at her. ‘This isn’t a DIA operation.’
‘How would you know?’ Natalie asked. ‘You’re not the director. They could have something going on above your pay-grade. Hell, they could be watching you too.’
‘I have no doubt that they are,’ Jarvis replied smoothly, catching her off guard. ‘Difference is that we would have a tangible reason for doing so. I don’t see anything here that suggests to me that this surveillance is anything other than some kind of training exercise. You’re on the committee’s list of investigators, Ethan and Lopez work for the DIA — maybe everyone’s keeping tabs right now.’
‘And my parents?’ Natalie pushed. ‘Are they being watched due to your supposed cautionary measures? My father’s a former United States Marine and my mother’s both elderly and suffering from arthritis. Are you expecting them to be behind the next major terrorist attack in this country? Does the DIA suspect that right now she’s working out how to build a rocket launcher from her goddamned walking stick?’
‘I think you’re overreacting,’ Jarvis replied. ‘And all of this is just paperwork without evidence to support it, which I don’t suppose you…’
Natalie slid her cellphone smoothly across the desk, the device spinning round as it came to a stop in front of Jarvis. He looked down at the image of a blue sedan, taken on what looked like the freeway over the Potomac.
‘What’s the chances of that turning out to be an agency pool vehicle if I run the plates through the committee’s investigation?’ Natalie asked. ‘It followed me for almost an hour this morning, along with another acting in support.’
‘It could be,’ Jarvis replied, his gaze still fixed on the image of the sedan. ‘But it won’t be DIA.’
‘I don’t care who the goddamned hell it belongs to,’ Natalie snapped as she grabbed her cellphone back. ‘I’m being followed. So are my family. I want to know why. I want your official assistance in this investigation, Mr. Jarvis. I want you to find out why my family are of such interest to the government, and I think that you already know more than you’re letting on.’
Again, the raised eyebrow and look of bemusement. ‘Really?’
Natalie felt a surge of anger at the old man and his casual disregard for her plight.
‘Y’know, for a friend of Ethan’s you sure know how to short-change him,’ Natalie shot back. ‘Who the hell do you people think you are?’
Jarvis sighed softly.
‘We’re the ones who have to make difficult decisions every single day of the year,’ he replied, ‘often decisions that conflict with what we would morally consider to be the right thing to do. There is no easy way to say this, Natalie, but Ethan, Nicola, yourself, your family, even me and mine, are nothing more than pawns in the epic sweep of mankind’s tale. Our priority is to protect and to serve this country for the benefit and security not of ourselves but of people who are not even born yet. It is they who will reap the rewards of our efforts, as we now reap the rewards of countless men and women who died in war zones to protect our way of life.’
Natalie sat in silence for a long moment. ‘Even if it costs innocent lives?’
Jarvis, his face impassive, nodded once.
‘Even then. It’s horrible, unfair and tragic, but sometimes our people are lost to enemy action through more than just a knife or a bullet. Sometimes it’s simply unavoidable that collateral damage will occur from operations and individuals can become exposed, their identities revealed to the enemy before we can protect them.’
Natalie realized that she was grinding her teeth in her skull. She forced herself to stop.
‘This surveillance,’ she said finally. ‘It’s not about my family, is it? It’s about Joanna Defoe.’
‘I don’t know,’ Jarvis replied.
‘You say that Ethan is your friend. I know that he respects you, Mr. Jarvis, although right now I’m struggling to figure out why. Surely you must consider it worthwhile to find out what happened to her, even if not in an official capacity?’
Jarvis remained impassive.
‘It is not within my remit to use the resources of this agency to satisfy personal grievances, no matter how tragic.’
Natalie pushed away from the desk and stood. Jarvis stood with her and extended his hand. Natalie was momentarily surprised. She looked into his eyes and saw swimming there a regret that she had not noticed before, like a long-forgotten dream breaking the surface of his thoughts.
‘I’m sorry that I can’t help you, Miss Warner,’ he said.
Natalie shook his hand and for a moment wasn’t sure what to say.
‘I know,’ she replied finally. ‘But rest assured, I will not stop until I find out what happened to her, regardless of your collateral damage.’
Mr. Wilson sat in silence in his car and watched from a distance as Natalie Warner drove out of the DIAC building’s lot and joined the freeway headed north for the district. He made no attempt to follow her, for to do so now could jeopardize the entire operation. Clearly, the analyst shared her brother’s soldiering instinct: Wilson knew he’d been spotted by Natalie on the freeway near Washington DC. Her keen eye had surprised him, but he would not be caught out so easily again.
He lifted his cell to his ear.
William Steel’s voice echoed down the line, distorted by the intense electronic shielding.
‘What news?’
‘Natalie Warner just visited somebody at the DIA, presumably Doug Jarvis. They’re onto something here, something beyond what we’re trying to protect. Without access I can’t tell what they’re up to.’
‘Then there is no longer any other option,’ Steel replied. ‘We cannot afford to take any chances. Bold action is all we have left. Ensure that the analyst is prevented from furthering her investigation.’
‘Understood,’ Wilson replied, and shut the line off.
He tossed the cellphone onto the passenger seat next to him and set off for Washington.
He would not be able to fire his gun easily in the city. He would have to use his imagination. A smile curled from the corner of his mouth.
32
Kurt Agry’s voice screamed out above the gunfire.
‘Fall back! Protect the camp!’
The soldiers turned and fired into the camp, rounds plowing through tents, boxes and bergens as they swept the camp with a lethal hail of bullets. Ethan flinched as more rocks arced down on them from above and thumped down onto the forest floor. One slammed into Klein’s arm and smashed the rifle from his grasp as he cried out and dropped to his knees.
Ethan sprinted forward and grabbed Klein’s M-16, then turned his back to the camp and squinted out into the darkness behind them instead. A massive form plunged through the trees away from him, barely visible. He lifted the rifle and fired two three-second bursts out into the woods, but the shadowy form was gone before he could determine if he’d hit it or not.
The gunfire ceased and the falling rocks vanished as quickly as they had come.
‘The camp’s on fire!’
Ethan turned to see flames curling and writhing up the walls of the tents, the burning embers from the fire scorching anything upon which they landed. Kurt Agry dashed into the center and hurled handfuls of dirt on the flames.
Ethan ran in alongside him and tossed the soldiers’ bergens clear of the flames, kicking out fires as Lopez joined him with Dana, Proctor, Duran and Mary. Ethan grabbed for another bergen and hauled it away from the fire. The top of the bergen spilled open as he yanked it away, and the flap of a canvas satchel toppled from within. As Ethan hauled the bergen clear of the flames, he almost leapt into the air as he saw the insignia on the satchel.