Tysons Corner was in Virginia, just across the Potomac and several miles to the west of them. It wasn’t part of D.C., but it was no surprise to anyone in the room that D.C. police would be informed to be on the lookout for the shooter just over the river.
The door to the suite opened back up and Hanley returned. Standing there in the dark and speaking loudly enough for everyone to hear, he said, “Two CIA counterintel officers were gunned down thirty minutes ago in Tysons Corner. Husband and wife. No robbery. Lone assassin on a motorcycle.”
“Jesus,” Court muttered.
Just then, Travers changed the subject, “Gumdrop, anybody get out of that vic on L Street yet?”
“Negative. Can’t see inside, but no one has stepped out.”
“Well…I’ve got another vehicle stopped, this one on New Hampshire. I watched it pull up a half block from the Savoy a couple minutes ago, about a block northeast of the Carriage House. It’s just sitting there.”
Immediately Jill said, “I see it. Black SUV. Could be a Ford Expedition. Can’t pick up a tag from my view.”
“Me, either,” Travers said.
After a moment’s silence, Hightower said, “Is it starting to feel like our subject is slowly being surrounded?”
Travers said, “These could be interdiction and isolation elements.”
Jill looked up from her computers; in the darkness her brown eyes sparkled wide. “What is that?”
Hightower answered. “Teams brought in to keep the target from getting out, and to keep anyone not wanted at the location from going in. I-and-I elements come first, then comes the strike team.” He spoke to Court in the other room. “What do you think, Six?”
“Too early to tell, but not too early to prepare.”
“What do you want to do?” Hanley asked.
“I can go solo down to street level. Nobody’s going to notice me.”
Hanley thought a moment. Then he said, “Stand by for now.”
A moment’s pause, just long enough for Court to convey that he did not agree with his orders. “Roger.”
Hanley’s phone buzzed in his pocket again, and he snatched it up, then tapped a button.
“Lacy, you’re on speaker.”
The female CIA officer said, “There’s been a killing down in Miami, had to have been within about ten minutes of the ones in Tysons. A former FBI supervisory special agent, he was downsized last year, has been working for Gauntlet Group for the past few months. Shot dead getting gas at a convenience store in Coconut Grove.”
“How do you know about this so fast?” Jill asked.
“Who’s speaking?” Lacy asked, defensively.
Hanley answered. “That’s Gumdrop. Ghost Town’s OSINT analyst. She’s one of us.”
After a moment of silence on the line, Lacy said, “FBI sends out Agency-wide alerts any time something like this happens to one of their own. The Director of National Intelligence office picked it up and sent out a text to the entire IC.”
“Any connection to our subject here in Foggy Bottom?” Hanley asked.
“Jim Pace is looking into that, but so far we have no reason to suspect a connection to the CIA officers killed in Virginia. I did want to alert you as soon as—”
“To hell with that,” Hanley said. “They’re related somehow. We ran into Gauntlet security men today.” To Jill, he said, “What’s the status of the two vehicles downstairs?”
“Unchanged. Still stationary, one on the southwest side of the Carriage House condos, the other on the northeast side.”
Hanley relayed to Lacy what was going on here in D.C., and while doing so he moved to the balcony glass door, and he looked down at the vehicles, then out, across L Street, towards Irene Ortega, the lights from her TV flashing across her as she sat on her couch looking at her phone.
Lacy said, “Are you starting to think Ortega might be a target?”
