When the bell rang, he set down his copy of the Washington Post and stood to answer the door.
He took a deep breath. This was a historic moment—something he had been waiting years for. If everything worked according to plan, this was the beginning of the end for Reed Carlton.
CHAPTER 16
* * *
* * *
“Couldn’t find a garbage can outside?” Page asked as Andrew Jordan pushed past him into the kitchen and emptied the remnants of his sack lunch onto the marble counter.
Jordan was a jowly man in his midforties, with perfectly combed blond hair and an ill-fitting suit. The knot of his tie was poorly tied, but his brown shoes were polished to a high shine. He was a study in contradictions.
Holding up a crushed can of Coke Zero, he tilted it admiringly in the light as if he were showing off the Hope Diamond. Then he tossed it to his friend and covert business partner. “Merry Christmas.”
Page caught the can in his left hand. “What’s this?”
“Open it.”
“What do you mean open it?”
“I mean open it.”
Page looked at him, then gripped the can at the top and the bottom and began to pull. There was something inside. Lifting it to his ear, he shook it and heard something rattle.
Jordan smiled. “I thought about hiding it in the apple core, but this was cleaner.”
Page turned the wrinkled can upside down over the counter and out came a micro SD card.
“If anyone had searched me,” Jordan continued, “all they would have gotten was practice.”
The CIA man was obviously pleased with himself. Page, though, was beyond pleased. If what he had was legitimate, a whole new era had just dawned. “You took a big risk doing this.”
“Everything I do is a big risk.”
Page grinned. The CIA had no clue what was going on right beneath their noses. Jordan was not only a pro at beating the regular polygraph tests, but he was also a pro at spotting coworkers ripe for recruitment.
The key to successfully stealing intelligence from within the CIA was making sure no one ever noticed anything was missing.
It was akin to being an art thief. Only a fool would attempt to steal the Mona Lisa. The security alone rendered it pointless.
The smart thief aimed his sights lower, on lesser pieces of art people weren’t paying close attention to.
And unlike the art world, in this one Page didn’t have to leave forgeries to cover up his crimes. All he had to do was make a copy of the original. As long as no one noticed, he was home free.
In fact, even if someone did notice, he had created such a complicated trail that it would take two lifetimes to trace it back to him.
“Where’s your computer?” Jordan asked. “You need to pop that card in and see what’s on it.”
Page disappeared to his study to retrieve his laptop. He was gone less than two minutes. When he returned to the kitchen, Jordan had already pulled a four-hundred-dollar limited-edition bottle of Dom Pérignon from the fridge, peeled off the foil, and was loosening the wire cage from around the cork.
“Sure, help yourself,” Page quipped, as he set his laptop on the counter.
“If you don’t think what I brought you is worth celebrating, I’ll buy you an entire case to replace this. Where do you keep the champagne glasses?”
Page tilted his head toward the cabinet above the microwave and fired up his MacBook.
It took a moment to boot up, but once it did, he attached an SD card reader, inserted the card, and clicked on the icon. Several folders appeared.
“Which one should I start with?” he asked.
There was a pop as Jordan wrenched the cork out of the bottle. “The one marked Burning Man.”
Page did and instantly regretted it. It contained photo after photo of dead bodies, people missing limbs, and thick rivers of blood.
The carnage made his stomach churn. “I don’t want to look at this.”
“Keep going.”
Page relented and scrolled through until he came across pictures of a man with a face full of war paint, beating another man.
“Those are the money shots,” Jordan said as he handed him a glass of champagne. “Wait’ll you get to the video.”
“What’s in the video?”
“Click on it.”
Once again, Page complied. The feed was shaky, taken on a camera phone by someone quickly backing away from the chaos.
Several men in the crowd could be seen rushing the man with the war paint, who pulled out a pistol and fired into the air.
“Where’d all this come from?”
“Nevada Park Rangers,” Jordan replied. “The people at Burning Man were apparently very cooperative. The Park Rangers handed the footage over to the FBI. We got copies from them.
“From what we’ve been able to figure out, there were four suicide bombers at the festival. Three were interdicted.”
“By whom?” Page asked.
“CIA contractors.”
“Working with the FBI?”
Jordan shook his head. “The Bureau had zero idea they were there.”
“That must be causing a little consternation.”
“Are you kidding me? The FBI Director hit the roof. And when the CIA Director asked him to keep quiet, he hit it again.”
Page’s eyebrows peaked in surprise. “McGee asked the FBI to hush it up?”
Jordan nodded. “Yup.”
“This is a huge clusterfuck for the Agency. What does it have to do with Reed Carlton, though?”
“The guy with the war paint? He’s Carlton’s golden boy.”
“What’s his name?” Page asked.
“Scot Harvath. SEAL Team Six guy. He’s got a pretty impressive background.”
“How impressive?”
Jordan took a sip of his champagne. “Click on the folder marked Personnel Records.”
Page opened the folder and skimmed the documents. There were copies of Harvath’s service records, his SF-86 Top Secret clearance questionnaire, the photo attached to the green badge he was issued to come and go at CIA headquarters, even prior tax returns showing the Carlton Group as his employer.
Page was impressed. “You weren’t kidding. This is damn good stuff.”
“It gets better. Click on the last file. The one marked Blue Door.”
Page did. The first photo showed a small lockkeeper’s house along what looked to be the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal near D.C. “Is this what I think it is?”
“Keep scrolling,” Jordan instructed.
As he moved through the pictures, he saw shots of the Director of Central Intelligence, Bob McGee, arriving with his security detail. He was followed by Deputy DCI Lydia Ryan. Last but not least, Scot Harvath arrived.
The best pictures, though, were the ones right at the end. In those, you could clearly see all three, standing together and chatting, followed by an extremely friendly good-bye.
While Page had made mistakes years ago in Italy, he wasn’t a stupid man—not by a long shot. As he went back through everything Jordan had collected, he analyzed each piece.
He knew Carlton. More important, he knew how Carlton’s mind worked. He knew that no matter what the situation appeared to be, Carlton was always ten steps ahead of everyone else.