“It’s all in code,” Archer said.
DeSantos turned to his partner. “Does that surprise you? It’s the fucking NSA. They live in code. I bet they talk to each other in code.” He looked back at the screen. “Except I don’t know how they’d pronounce these words…”
Archer ignored him and moved over to the printer again. He removed the new document, took it to his scanner, and placed it face down on the glass. “I don’t know how long this will take. Could be hours.”
DeSantos put his feet up on the conference table, closed his eyes, and folded his hands across his stomach. “In the meantime, I guess I’d better earn my salary.”
36
Payne was seated in the back row of the small, sloping stadium-style classroom at the Academy, stifling a yawn. Sleep had not been coming easy the past few days, and it was now reaching the point where he considered asking the doctor if he could get a prescription for some sleeping pills.
He blinked a few times and looked around the room, taking in the mix of new agents around him. Many were in their late twenties, while a couple were in their midthirties, barely getting in under the Bureau’s cap of thirty-seven.
The instructor was discussing proper forensic crime-scene procedures, a topic Payne found fascinating. But as soon as the overhead graphic depicting mathematical formulas consisting of sines and cosines of angles was displayed, his mind began drifting off.
Suddenly, an image of a house on a hill popped into his mind. And a car, a late-model Chrysler. Forest green, high polish. It was the same one he had seen in his dreams. He sat there, trying to trace the memory, when suddenly the instructor stopped talking. The entire class had turned and was facing Payne, apparently expecting a response from him.
“Agent Thompson,” the instructor said, “I’ll take that as a no, that you don’t have anything additional to offer.”
Payne felt his face turning crimson. “Uh, no, sir. Nothing to offer.”
“Very well,” the man said as the heads swiveled back to the instructor. Even though he was the only field agent taking the class, he felt that he might as well have been one of the rookies, longing for the day when he was to be presented with his credentials and job assignment. Of course, no one in the class, including the instructors, knew his true identity. With the mole still unidentified, the fewer people who knew he was at the Academy, the better.
At 5:10, class ended and the students left their assigned seats for the dining hall, where dinner awaited them. Waller was waiting in the hallway as Payne walked out of the room.
“Director Knox wants you in on the briefing of the kidnap situation,” he said.
“When’s that?”
“Forty-five minutes. We’ve got to leave now.”
They were in the car a few minutes later, heading down the winding two-lane road toward the main gate at Quantico.
“Were you ever able to retrieve your e-mail?” Waller asked.
Payne turned away and looked out the side window. He had told Waller over breakfast that he was having difficulty getting through to the Hotmail site.
“Yeah, it worked,” he said, realizing that he needed to talk with someone about the message he had received. He had originally decided to keep knowledge of his wife’s e-mail to himself, feeling that the internal conflict he was suddenly facing — the realization that he had made a mistake in giving up his former life — was best handled without meddling interference. But as the day wore on, guilt welled up inside him. As any man should, he felt a responsibility to the woman he had evidently married. He knew instinctively that he could not run away from such a commitment. At the same time, acknowledging that he needed an outlet, someone he could bounce his concerns off, he turned to Waller.
“I got a message,” Payne said with a chuckle. “From my wife.”
“Your wife—”
“Yeah, can you believe that? I live in a small town, some place called Placerville, and I work as a network account manager.”
“Far cry from life as an agent,” Waller said.
“Yeah, sounds about as interesting as watching lettuce grow.”
Waller sighed. “What it is and what it sounds like could be very different, Harp. I find it hard to believe that you’d go from the kind of career you had to living a boring lifestyle.”
“I guess. Maybe I needed the change after what I’d been through.”
“You’ve got to believe in yourself, buddy. No one has as much vested in yourself as you do. No one. I’m sure you did what you thought was best at the time. But things have changed. You’ve been through a lot in the past several days. I say we first get you through this trial, then you can regroup, make some decisions.”
Payne nodded, but looked away.
“If there’s anything I can do to help, just let me know, okay? And I’m not just talking about Bureau stuff. Anything.”
Payne thanked him, then fell silent, nearly drifting off to sleep several times while staring out the window as they made the forty-minute drive along I-95, up Pennsylvania Avenue, and into the parking garage at headquarters.
They took the elevator up to the lobby, where they were greeted by Chuck Seamen, the FBI policeman who had been assigned the lobby’s four-to-twelve shift for the past nineteen years. Graying at the temples with an expanding waistline, he had come to enjoy the second most relaxed schedule at headquarters. Seamen engaged them in some playful banter as Waller logged them in and headed to the elevator.
After receiving clearance from Liz Evanston, Waller led the way into the vacant office. A moment later, the director entered and took his seat behind the desk.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” Knox said, nodding for them to sit. “Agent Haviland should be joining us in a moment.” While fiddling with some papers, Knox glanced up at Payne. “I asked you to be here because I felt it’s time to begin integrating you into the current Scarponi situation, to bring you up to speed.”
Payne nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“As I’m sure Agent Waller has informed you, my daughter was taken by Scarponi’s men yesterday morning. She was returned unharmed last night.”
Haviland walked in and sat down next to Waller. “Sorry I’m late, but I was waiting on verbals from the ME and the lab.”
Knox motioned him on with the wave of a hand. “Your report.”
“Agent Stanfield’s body was discovered this afternoon a half mile from GW’s main campus,” Haviland said. “Single gunshot wounds to the chest and cranium. Preliminary findings indicate he was shot in the chest first, at extremely close range with a forty-caliber semiautomatic, most likely a Glock. The head wound was inflicted a short time later, while he was lying down. Body was found in his trunk, where he apparently bled out. But he wouldn’t have recovered even if immediate medical attention was rendered.”
Knox sighed. “Assessment.”
“As I see it,” Haviland said, “someone approached Stanfield either in the guise of a fellow agent, campus police, or Metro PD. We suspect he engaged Stanfield somewhere in the quad and drilled him in the chest with a suppressed round. Stanfield was then taken to a waiting car nearby where he was driven to his own parked vehicle, half a mile away. They stuffed him in the trunk and popped him in the head. His credentials case was missing, so whoever took it probably used it to lure Melissa into a false sense of security.”
Knox was nodding. “Any video?”
“We’ve secured every second of surveillance tape from every camera in the vicinity. None captured the shooting.”
“Given Scarponi’s level of expertise and planning,” Waller said, “that’s not surprising. He knew where and when to hit.”
Knox tightened his jaw, then said, “Anything else?”