Access Denied.
She buzzed Stephanie. "Steph, can you come in for a sec?"
Stephanie had on one of her favorite red and black color combinations. A tailored blouse and jacket hid the Glock tucked into the waist of her black skirt. She came into Elizabeth's office.
Stephanie was one of the secrets of Elizabeth's success. If necessary, she could take over the Project. More, there was nothing Stephanie couldn't do with a computer. Elizabeth sometimes thought Steph had binary bits and electrons running through her veins along with her blood.
There was no need to talk about Alpha Red. Stephanie knew the drill.
"Let's have lunch," Elizabeth said. She pointed at the screen with its infuriating message and put a finger on her lips. "We can sit out back in the shade garden."
The back of the Project building sheltered an enclosed garden with high walls and a pleasant, shaded fountain. In good weather it was a favorite spot for lunch and impromptu meetings.
"My pleasure." Stephanie twirled the gold bracelets on her wrist.
Harker shut down her computer. She had Stephanie. That was all she would need.
The two women rode down to the first floor and went out past the security station into the parking lot. They walked in silence to Elizabeth's Audi. Stephanie used a detector to make a sweep. She found a bug near the driver's side door and placed it on the curb.
They headed for the highway.
In a darkened room lined with monitors, the technicians manning the audio surveillance and tracking equipment noticed nothing amiss. They were multi-tasking, monitoring a stream of audio and video transmissions from multiple sources. The locator showed Harker's car parked outside her building. The bug transmitted normal background sounds. The subject had given no sign she knew she was being surveilled. There was no reason to be suspicious.
The GPS readouts indicated the vehicle belonging to Ronnie Peete was parked in Virginia at a well known restaurant. Selena Connor's car was still in the parking lot next to Harker's and she was with Peete anyway. Everything looked good. Just another routine job.
Elizabeth drove toward the city. She told Stephanie of the morning call from the new head of NSA.
"Dysart is the only one who could have blocked my clearance."
"Do you think it's personal?"
"I hardly know him, Steph. He's got no reason to do this." She paused. "He's moved fast. General Hood only went down last night."
Her intuition sent vibes all over her body, raising goose bumps.
"Do you think he had anything to do with that? Dysart?"
"With General Hood's illness? Elizabeth, that's a terrible thought."
"Dysart wants me to pull Nick out right away. A decorated, effective agent in place when the President is in a high risk security situation and Dysart wants him gone. Then he knocks out my classified access. I don't like what I'm thinking."
"You think Dysart is setting something up. Something about the President."
Stephanie shifted in her seat, adjusted the pistol tucked behind her back.
Harker said, "The Middle East is a powder keg. I think someone may want to set it off. If Dysart is part of a conspiracy, he'd try to shut us down before we discovered whatever is being planned. It would explain the surveillance, everything."
Stephanie looked out the window.
Elizabeth thought about Dysart. I hope I'm wrong and this is only some petty vendetta. But what if I'm right? Something must be set to happen in Jerusalem, or why block me? Block the Project? How do I stop something I can't pin down?
She had no answer. There was no one outside of the team she could trust. She'd have to handle it on her own.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
They skirted the Capitol and crossed the Arlington Memorial Bridge. Elizabeth turned right onto Memorial Parkway. In a short time they came to the Marine Corps War Memorial. The thirty foot high bronze figures were frozen in time as they struggled to raise the flag on Iwo Jima. The flag flew overhead in a brisk autumn breeze. In the distance the Washington Monument thrust white and shining into the blue sky.
America.
Ronnie and Selena came across the grass. The four stood facing each other next to the polished granite base of the memorial. Ronnie set his black box down on the ground between them.
"Hell of a thing," said Ronnie. "Someone bugged my Hummer, high end stuff, government issue."
"My car, too, Ronnie. We have to assume Selena's car is tagged also."
"What's going on, Director?" Selena brushed a wisp of hair away from her forehead. It was a habit Elizabeth had noted.
"Nick is blown. He found our contact in Jerusalem dead. Someone was waiting and tried to kill him, too. NSA has a new boss, General Dysart. I've got a bad feeling about him."
Selena's voice was strained. "Is Nick all right?"
"Yes."
"Dysart is bad news." Ronnie looked up at the flag. "He's one of those Pentagon desk jockeys who thinks paper work is more important than body armor. Why is Hood gone?"
"He's in Walter Reed, supposedly with a stroke."
"Supposedly?"
"Maybe Hood's stroke wasn't an accident. Hood goes down. Then Dysart calls me up and tells me I should terminate a mission he's not supposed to know about. He's blocked my classified access to NSA. We're being surveilled. Someone tries to take Nick out of the picture. I think we've stumbled into something."
Ronnie looked down and scuffed his shoe against the grass. "You think someone's going after Rice? You sound like you think there's a conspiracy to take over the NSA. Who could set that up?"
"Dysart said he'd been talking to Lodge, so CIA may be in on this, too."
"What's our next move?"
"I think we'd better be damn careful. Whoever's behind this may try to take us out of circulation. If Dysart or Lodge are involved, we're in trouble."
Elizabeth looked around. The only people in sight were an older couple some distance away. The man was taking pictures of the Memorial.
"I think we go to ground," Elizabeth said.
Stephanie said, "The safe house?"
"Yes. We've got everything we need there. No one at NSA or Langley knows about it."
The safe house was in the rural Virginia countryside, an hour and a half from Alexandria. Elizabeth had set it up two years ago. Not even the President knew about it.
"We'll leave now for the house. Then we decide our next moves. If I'm right, it won't be long before people will be looking for us."
Elizabeth looked up at the flag, then back at the others. "Agreed?"
The four got back in their vehicles. In a short time it was as if they had disappeared from the face of the earth.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Carter and Rivka were in the sushi bar at Nick's hotel. It was evening. Two of the president's entourage sat at the end of the counter, watched by a Secret Service agent loitering near a tall, potted palm.
Nick's headache was gone. The fingers of his hand were swollen and stiff, but aside from that he felt pretty good. He downed a cup of sake, to help his fingers.
"So, now you've seen Old Jerusalem." Rivka sipped her sake and set it down. She lifted a piece of maguro with her chopsticks. "I'm curious. What do you think?"
"It's like a schizophrenic's dream. Like three or four different worlds."
"They are different worlds. Jerusalem puts on a face of diversity but it's a time bomb. Jews, Christians and Arabs are all crammed into sections of the city side by side. They don't like each other."
"Religion doesn't have much to do with reason."
"That's the problem."
"You're not religious?"
"I love my religion, but I'm what they call a secular Jew. The Orthodox disapprove of people like me. Those kinds of divisions in Israel make it hard to get any real consensus."