Shadow Woman A Novel

Chapter Fourteen



Felice McGowan never wasted her time worrying about status or perks, or any of the other ego traps that kept the majority of people in D.C. so preoccupied. In a perfect world, she would have a personal driver who always delivered her right to the door of where she was going, and no one would ever question her authority. Those were the two items on her private wish list, but the world wasn’t perfect, so she forgot about it and dealt with reality.

Reality, in this case, was that she had to go out in the rain like everyone else, that most good plans usually went to hell somewhere along the line, and because of the nature of the game she had to go to Al Forge instead of telling him to come to her. His willingness to do so wasn’t in doubt, but she worked at NSA now and she didn’t want him there, didn’t want the super-snoopers to see them together. Their relationship was completely off the books, and had to stay that way, for both their sakes.

In one way she had it easier than Al. She wasn’t involved in the day-to-day, off-the-books surveillance of Subject C. Al not only oversaw that, he was also officially working under the large umbrella of Homeland Security. What he truly did was so wrapped in layers of need-to-know and for-your-eyes-only that probably even the President didn’t have the complete dossier on him. He’d started out at Treasury, with the Secret Service, then switched to DOJ, and from there God only knew everything he’d done.

The NSA had the goods on everyone who was on the grid—meaning everyone except maybe the homeless and a few hermits—but she hadn’t been able to access everything in Al’s file. There were gaps that probably corresponded to some interesting international events, but she hadn’t tried to match them up. When push came to shove, the country needed people like Al. Back in the day, she’d had a couple of gaps in her own dossier.

What Al used to do, Xavier now did. But Al had always kept his personal compass set on true north—meaning the best interests of the country—while Xavier was a wild card. When he’d started out she’d thought he was as true blue as Al, and God knows his skill level was off the charts, but along the way he’d gone a little rogue. Her confidence in him had been eroding for the past four years. But Al still trusted him, still believed in him, and that carried more weight than Al probably realized.

She didn’t rationalize what they’d done. She couldn’t. Every time she thought about it, she still got a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Her head recognized the necessity, but her heart bitterly regretted every action they’d taken, and mourned the outcome. All of them had lost pieces of their souls that day, pieces they’d never get back no matter how much they devoted themselves to their work.

And now there was this thing with Subject C. No one had wanted to eliminate her, but everyone had recognized that she was the linchpin, the central weakness, that could not only take all of them down but also irreparably damage the country. Despite what Al perhaps thought, Felice wasn’t eager to give the order; still, she understood that such an action might be necessary, while Al couldn’t seem to admit that.

The thing was, for a while they’d been so close, the whole team, and people who went through such an intense event together developed a sense of family, of connectedness. Al’s loyalty to his team was legendary. But Subject C hadn’t been a part of the team; she’d been a tool the team had used.

They’d planned to eliminate the threat she posed to them, right from the beginning. As long as she wasn’t a threat, Felice was content to let her live.

As long as she wasn’t a threat.

There were disturbing details surfacing now, each of them small and easily explained away. However, taken as a whole, those details formed a completely different picture, one that Felice didn’t think they could afford to ignore. It was a picture that said Subject C was becoming a threat.

The building that housed Subject C’s surveillance was an ordinary two-story redbrick; the lettering on the door said Capitol Temporary Services. If anyone happened to wander in looking for a temp to fill in for a sick or vacationing office worker, there was a reception area, a receptionist, a “manager,” and, if necessary, a temp could actually be found. But given that the erstwhile business didn’t have a listed phone number, did no advertising, and walk-in business was nonexistent, that had never happened. Every now and then a not-too-bright guy would get the idea that “temporary services” was euphemistic for “call girl” and come in to negotiate a rate, but that was about it. Twice people had come in asking for directions.

Inside, the security was top notch. She nodded to the receptionist, who she knew was armed. Her thumbprint opened the first set of reinforced doors, and from there she progressed through additional layers until she reached the upper level. No building was completely unbreachable, of course. There was always a way to either get inside or destroy it. But this building wasn’t in the center of power or action, and it was so bland as to be almost invisible.

At its most basic level, the building functioned as intelligence and support. Al Forge ran his black ops, and one very small portion, completely insulated from the rest, was dedicated to the surveillance of Subject C.

Al wasn’t immediately available, so Felice left word she was there, and she went to the tank to wait. There was very little opportunity for silence in her world, and the tank was completely silent except for her own breathing, her own footsteps, her own little noises and no one else’s. No one was watching her, no one was gauging her reactions, no one was waiting for a decision—well, at least not at this very moment. She selected a pod of French roast and made a cup of coffee, then sat down to enjoy her solitude. Al wouldn’t keep her waiting long, so she had to make the best of it while she could.

She had some decisions to make, decisions that she didn’t take lightly. Al’s warning that Xavier knew where she lived and where her daughter lived wasn’t something she could ignore. Al had meant it as a warning, and she had taken it as such.

She could shrug off any implied danger to herself, because she had accepted that possibility from the outset, but when her child was threatened … there was no shrugging that off. Ashley was her heart. She couldn’t bear the thought that anything might happen to her daughter, that Ashley wouldn’t get to live life to the fullest, to love and be loved, to have children, to grow old and see her family grow, to have a fulfilling career. She wanted all of that, and more, for her daughter. She wanted everything. Selfishly, she also wanted to see her own grandchildren someday.

She would not, ever in this lifetime, tolerate a threat to the precious life that was her daughter.

She couldn’t spirit Ashley away, hide her from all danger. Ashley was a continent away, doing her post-grad work at Stanford. She was an excellent student, a self-driven overachiever who was willing to work her butt off to reach her goals. But she was also young, and even if Felice explained the danger to her, Ashley wouldn’t understand the gravity of the situation, wouldn’t cooperate with a massive interruption of her plans.

Therefore, something had to be done about Xavier.

Al entered the tank then. Whatever his thoughts were about her presence here, so soon after her last visit, they didn’t show on his face. He’d make a killing at the Vegas poker tables if he ever decided to take up gambling. “What’s up?” he asked casually as he, too, went to the coffeemaker and selected a pod.

Al wasn’t a casual-type man. He could project the attitude if he wanted, but he was always thinking, always weighing, always trying to steer events his way. He knew why she was here.

Nevertheless, Felice went about systematically outlining the situation and her intentions—some of them, anyway. “Subject C is showing more signs of … instability,” she replied. “Nothing dramatic, but out of her usual routine.”

He waited until his coffee cup was full, then removed it and sipped before saying nonchalantly, “Such as?”

She felt a flash of annoyance that he’d asked, because they had trackers on Subject C’s car; they knew exactly where she’d gone yesterday afternoon. She never took Al for a fool, and he returned the favor. If he was doing this dance, it was for a reason.

“You don’t think driving miles into Virginia to a strip mall, bypassing several malls much closer that have the same stores, is a break in her routine?” All she put into her tone was mild curiosity.

He sighed. “Did she do anything nefarious at these stores?”

“She went to a sporting goods store.”

“The horror,” he said, keeping his tone so bland that the unexpressed sarcasm was sharper than it would have been if he’d snapped at her. Despite herself, Felice found herself smiling, because she liked a good comeback. “Her credit card shows she bought some running shoes, a jogging outfit, and some wasp spray.”

She made a dismissive gesture. “I know that. I also know no charges at any other stores showed up, so she either paid cash for what she bought at them or she went specifically to that store and nowhere else. Again, she passed other, closer, sporting goods stores. Why that one? Why so far into Virginia?”

“Maybe she hadn’t planned to stop anywhere; maybe she just went for a drive, on an impulse.”

“Please,” she said, leaving the Don’t be an idiot unspoken. “She’s programmed not to be impulsive. If she’s becoming impulsive, then the process isn’t holding. And taking a spontaneous drive isn’t the only thing different that she’s doing.”

“Such as?”

“She went running late yesterday evening when she got home. The impression my man got, the very words he used, was that it was as if she was starting training.”

“That’s just someone’s impression, and I assume you used people who know nothing about her. She bought running shoes and a new outfit yesterday, then she went running. That isn’t exactly unexpected. For all we know, people in her office started talking about dieting, getting in shape, and she decided to go along with it too.”

Felice thought about that. “Feasible,” she finally agreed, because it was. Kind of on the outer limits, but still within the bounds of feasibility. “If she had activated the new cell phone she bought, which she hasn’t. She went to the trouble of buying a new cell phone the day after she broke hers, but she still hasn’t even put the battery in it. Hell, why didn’t she let them activate it in the store? That was on Saturday. This is Tuesday. All of the little things, taken together, form a picture I don’t like.”

He was silent, which meant the deal with the cell phone had bothered him, too. That wasn’t normal behavior. Going for a drive, doing some impulse shopping, maybe going for an after-work jog—those things were unlike her, but not, in and of themselves, enough to make anyone push the panic button.

But he couldn’t explain the cell phone. Who bought a cell phone and didn’t put the battery in it? People like them, that’s who, people who knew just putting the battery in activated the GPS, put out a signal that let them be traced. All over the world, people were voluntarily carrying automatic tracking devices that, knowing the nature of the world and governments, could one day be used to hunt them down and keep them under control.

“Given that all of this started when her supervisor possibly alerted her to the difference in time lapse,” she continued, driving her point home, “we have to assume that did trigger some sort of mental … adjustment.”

“Even if some of her former personal qualities are resurfacing, that doesn’t mean her memory is,” Al said. “She has no way of accessing any records, no way of knowing where to start. Even if she did look, all she’d find is a gap of two years. All the paperwork is tied up, and leads to dead ends. You know that. We covered every base.”

“Unless her memory comes back, too.”

“What are the odds of that? Aren’t you more likely to get hit by a lightning bolt when you walk out the door?”

“Yes, of course, given that the odds of getting hit by lightning are surprisingly high. But you tell me: considering the subject matter, exactly what kind of odds can we afford to tolerate concerning Subject C?”

She had him there. The only logical answer was zero. None.

What she wanted was for Al to accept the reality of the situation and stop protecting Subject C. She had her own resources, but nothing like what Al could pull into action. If he would handle the people and let her handle the spin, they could come through this—maybe damaged, with doubt and suspicion following them for the rest of their lives, but those lives at least wouldn’t be spent in prison, and on death row at that.

“I think you’re borrowing trouble,” he finally said. “Even if she did remember everything, what’s she going to do? She, of all people, will want what we did kept quiet.”

“Another question about odds: how likely is she to recover all her memory? Given the process, a partial recall is the more likely outcome.”

“Given the process, it’s a wonder she’s a functioning human being at all,” Al said sharply.

“She agreed to it.”

“Only because the other option was a bullet in the head.”

Felice had the beginnings of a headache, and she rubbed her forehead. Nothing about this situation was going to be easy. Al obviously wasn’t going to step up to the plate, even though they were practically getting slapped in the face by the danger signs. She’d have to handle it.

Very well, then, she’d do it her way.

But for Al’s benefit, she said, “Fine. We’ll just keep an eye on her for a while longer. You’d better pray you’re right, or we’re all going down.”