Even though the decor and furnishings weren’t up to today’s standards, the entire building retained a network of antiquated but robust security measures. All the locks were pneumatic and controllable from a security room. In the event of an attack on the property, steel barriers could be lowered behind the doors and windows to seal in the occupants in the south wing, which had its own dedicated air supply, its own long-term food storage, even its own water tower that was protected in a small rear courtyard.
Suzanne Brewer thought Carmichael’s decision to utilize Alexandria Eight was over the top, even considering the threat from Court Gentry, but Carmichael insisted, so she personally toured the location and oversaw bringing the pneumatic security system back online, and she ordered technicians to augment the property with more cameras, communications gear, and high-tech security measures.
Carmichael arrived via motorcade at nine p.m. and he went directly to one of the bedrooms on the second floor of the south wing. This room also had an outer office he could use while here, as well as a huge adjacent conference room with a twenty-seat table, so the entire Working Group could begin holding their evening meetings here, instead of at Langley.
With him here at Alexandria Eight Carmichael had DeRenzi and his entire twelve-man personal protection detail, along with another sixteen CIA security officers pulled off of static safe house work in the area.
Carmichael toured the entire south wing and spoke with Brewer about adding a few more details to make the facility safer. Once satisfied all protective measures were in place, the director of the National Clandestine Service determined that, while there was no place safer than the CIA’s HQ, running a close second now was Alexandria Eight.
—
Jordan Mayes arrived at Alexandria Eight a half hour later in the center of a three-SUV motorcade, feeling like the nucleus of an atom with eight bodyguards serving as the electrons. Together all nine men rolled up the long, straight driveway towards the massive building, checking in with a pair of parked Yukon XLs that blocked the drive halfway up.
Everyone knew Jordan Mayes, of course, but he still had to show his ID to gain access, as did everyone on his security team, and a pair of German shepherds sniffed under the SUVs to make sure Gentry wasn’t riding below, holding on to the underside of one of the vehicles like a cartoon ninja.
The three SUVs finished their journey up the driveway and arrived at the front door of the massive building. Here they passed four more guards, each one armed with an assault rifle, and they entered the grand hall of the former seminary. More guards here looked ready to deal with any trouble, but they were professionals, and they were also in the presence of the number two clandestine services executive in the Agency, so they merely checked his ID perfunctorily and pointed the way up a winding staircase to the right that led to the south wing.
Mayes looked around as he headed to the open staircase that rimmed the grand hall. This place was a fortress, but he had expected nothing less as far as security. Suzanne Brewer had set up the defenses for Carmichael’s stay here, and she was nothing if not good at her job.
Mayes climbed the stairs with four members of his detail, and at the top they passed through a wide doorway that opened into a hall that led north and south. Mayes knew from a phone call with Brewer that the door from the staircase into the hallway was iron and several tons in weight, and it was controlled by pneumatic pressure and flow-control valves so that it could pivot shut remotely and lock with wide internal iron bolts that could withstand a round from an Abrams tank. The entire south wing, in fact—doors, windows, even the walls themselves—were either steel-reinforced or protected by the pneumatic emergency security system, and the twelve rooms inside the protective cocoon could all go from wide open to locked tight in just seconds.
Carmichael’s suite was at the end of the hallway. He was protected by DeRenzi and two more guards here, but when Mayes stepped into the office outside of Denny’s bedroom, D/NCS told the security officers to wait outside. DeRenzi and the others stepped out, and Carmichael shut the door and locked it.
Carmichael was just finishing up a phone call with Brewer, who was on her way to D.C., where she had been summoned to the JSOC safe house to speak with Dakota, so Mayes took a moment to look around. The windows to the outside were tempered glass; not bulletproof, but they did not need to be, because iron slats could fall into place at the touch of a button. One exit out of the office led to the bedroom, a second to the hallway that served as the spine of the south wing, and the third to a narrow inner hallway that led past a narrow staircase, which ascended one flight to a locked door. The other side of the door was the south wing attic, which itself was secured from the outside and shut off from the other parts of the building. Beyond the stairway in the narrow hall was a bathroom, and then a large conference room.
As soon as Denny finished his call he looked at his watch. “It’s ten p.m., Mayes. Trouble?”
“We have a problem.”