Friday’s movie featured a misunderstood teenager drafted into a fight against a dystopian oligarch. The key to winning, as best as Gibson could follow, was embracing her individuality. He liked this one more than most of the movies he’d seen recently, although he didn’t know what it said about him that he related so strongly to a teenage freedom fighter. Exhausted after a long week, he could have used a nap, but no way he was sleeping. Tonight was the night.
When the world was saved and the credits rolled, Gibson went out to the lobby and bought a ticket for another movie he’d already seen. At the concession counter, he ordered a large soda and made a big show of holding it carefully in both hands. They all shared a good laugh about his clumsiness. Gibson asked them the time and wished them a good weekend. Back in the theater, he found a seat in the back and let the lights dim before slipping out the side exit.
His Yukon was gone. In its place sat a blue 2001 Yukon with Virginia plates. Once again, Gavin Swonger had come through. Gibson thought about considering the proposition that this might be the rule more than the exception.
The driver’s door was unlocked, and Gibson found the key under the mat. He took an inventory of the trunk. He counted everything that he’d requested along with the suitcase he’d left in his Yukon for Swonger to transfer between vehicles. Inside the suitcase was an empty backpack that Gibson filled with items from tonight’s delivery. Then he got on the road.
Rush hour was typical for a Friday night, but once he got on the Dulles Toll Road, things eased up. He parked at one of the hotels surrounding the airport, chosen for its lack of security cameras. He tucked the Yukon away in an inconvenient back corner, wheels far enough into the adjacent spot to discourage anyone who cared about their paint job. He rolled the suitcase—the kind businesspeople crammed into the overhead bins on flights—over to the hotel and caught a cab to a second hotel, this one in Tysons Corner. In the lobby bathroom, he changed into his cold-weather running gear. He took the .45 Lawman from its clear plastic bag and loaded it. It felt so good in his hand that he only grudgingly put it back in the backpack. He left the suitcase in a dumpster behind the hotel and caught a second cab that dropped him five blocks from Damon Ogden’s home. He paid cash and shouldered his backpack as the cab disappeared up the block.
It was going to be another cold one.
Kidnapping an officer of the Central Intelligence Agency was a terrible, foolhardy idea. It could only end badly. But the fact that it was a terrible idea gave Gibson certain advantages. No one had ever kidnapped a CIA officer on American soil. That meant he had the element of surprise on his side. Sometimes foolhardy gave you an edge.
It also helped that security for the intelligence community was reactive rather than proactive. Roughly five million Americans held security clearances, so it simply wasn’t feasible to watch everyone. The first line of defense was the individuals themselves. If Damon Ogden spotted trouble—for example, if a foreign national made an approach or if Ogden lost his ID—it was his responsibility to report it. Once the CIA knew of a problem, it would react quickly, but until then, it idled at the starting line.
So, hypothetically, if one of their officers went missing, the CIA wouldn’t have any idea initially. It wouldn’t be until Ogden was reported missing or failed to show up at Langley that the CIA would be alerted. Even then, the CIA would allow a short grace period—Gibson guessed no more than a few hours—before it initiated a search. Step one would be to call everyone on the missing officer’s emergency contact form. If friends and family couldn’t help to locate Damon Ogden, the next step would be to send a supervisor to Ogden’s home. Within four or five hours, the FBI and the local police would have been alerted. Within twelve hours, the full muscle of the American intelligence community would be mobilized to find their missing man.
Once that happened, it wouldn’t take long for someone at Langley to throw the name Gibson Vaughn into the pot along with any other enemies Damon Ogden may have made. After that, they would begin sifting through Gibson’s life for any indication that he’d abducted Damon Ogden. Gibson would either need to be off the grid by then, in which case the CIA would draw a bull’s-eye on his back that would never be erased, or else right where they expected him to be, squeaky clean, above reproach, just trying to make ends meet at the diner.
Gibson had opted for the latter. For one thing, he didn’t have the resources to go on the run. Better to hide in plain sight and give them no reason to suspect him. Let them sniff around; if his plan worked, then he’d be nowhere near Ogden when the CIA let the dogs off the leash. But to do that he’d need a head start. Friday night gave him his best shot. Monday was Martin Luther King Day. If he took Ogden on Friday evening, then alarms at the CIA wouldn’t start going off until late Tuesday morning when Ogden failed to report for work. That would give him eighty-four hours to cover his tracks while simultaneously creating a much larger window of time for which investigators would need to account.
The wild card would be if the Agency tried to reach Ogden over the weekend, or if he had personal plans. From what Gibson had been able to ascertain, Ogden’s social circle was small, only a handful of college friends. However, he dated a woman, a single mother of two, in Reston. Ogden saw her two or three times a week and almost always on the weekend. Gibson would need to create a convincing excuse to keep her from panicking early. He had an idea how he’d handle it, but it would have to happen on the fly after he’d taken Ogden. It was risky, reckless even, but then, no plan was perfect.
Gibson pulled on his face shield and began an easy jog toward Ogden’s house.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
As night fell, so did the temperature. The wind had a bite to it, driving the wise indoors. It picked up as Gibson turned onto Damon Ogden’s street. Two cars sped by on their way home after a long week, and a woman dragged a shivering dachshund up the sidewalk, but otherwise he saw no one, and no one saw him. Jogging past Ogden’s house, he found nothing out of the ordinary. He ran a few blocks before circling back. There was no hurry. Ogden was a creature of habit and wouldn’t be home before six thirty at the earliest.