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The phone rang again.
“Yes?” was the impatient response. Then a pause. “Thank you.” A few quick clicks on the team leader’s laptop. “He emailed us.”
Everyone listened as the email was read aloud.
“He’s not coming to D.C.,” the AUSA realized aloud. “He’s going straight to JFK.”
“Then we’ll have him detained there.” The office head paused. “In the meantime, we’ve got to wrap up this investigation. One day. That’s all we’ve got.”
“If we have that,” the AUSA replied. “What happens when he tries to contact Amanda Gleason by phone? You know he will. And there’ll be no weather to screw up his cell service.”
“We’ll take care of that.”
At that heightened moment, the office head’s BlackBerry rang. He glanced at the caller ID and blanched. “It’s her.” He gestured urgently toward the door, ordering everyone to leave.
* * *
Minutes later, urgent instructions arrived at the desk of the head network security analyst on duty. He thrust aside his current assignment and turned quickly to the task at hand. With a few mouse clicks, he disabled the targeted cell phone, transforming it into nothing more than an expensive paperweight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Patricia Carey couldn’t shut an eye all night long.
She was in her office, pacing restlessly about at 5:00 a.m. The current situation forced a flood of raw emotion to surface. How darkly ironic life was. As the Executive Assistant Director, she was the highest-ranking woman in the entire agency. All her life, she’d exceeded everyone’s expectations. In school. In training. In her rapid rise to a position of power. At forty-six years old, she was still successful at everything she did.
Except for the one thing that would truly have been her legacy.
Despite consultations with the most noted experts in the world, and the hundreds of thousands of dollars she’d paid them, she’d failed.
She blamed herself entirely. She’d waited too long. The rise of her career had pushed this onto the back burner. She’d climbed the proverbial ladder, all the while thinking that later would be fine. But when later came, Mother Nature had other plans. And her body refused to cooperate.
Tears. Trials. Injections. In vitro. Nothing had worked.
By the time she’d accepted the inevitable, even adoption was not in the cards. Her age, her now-greater set of professional responsibilities, and, most of all, her depleted emotional reserves—all those factors combined to rule out the prospect of adoption.
A baby was precious. But, for her, it was never to be.
So, yes, her circumstances had colored her thinking. But still she’d debated the current dilemma long and hard, forcing herself to be objective, to view things from all angles. She had the final say. And her primary responsibility was to the agency.
But at what cost?
The hours ticked by, slowly and painfully. Patricia drank her coffee and searched her soul. The decision would be hers. So would the ramifications.
Patricia’s bleary-eyed assistant, Sharon, knocked and then poked her head into the office. “It’s eight o’clock, ma’am. The contingent from New York has arrived. They’ve been driving all night to make this meeting. Everyone is assembled in the conference room as you ordered. Will there be anything else?”
“Yes,” Patricia replied. “I need to see Richard before I go to this meeting. Have him come to my office now.”
“Of course.”
A few minutes later, Richard Fieldstone, the Deputy Assistant Director of the Criminal Investigative Unit, and the Chairman of CUORC—the Criminal Undercover Operation Review Committee—stepped into his boss’s office. “You wanted to see me, Pat?”
“Yes.” She waved him in. “Close the door behind you and have a seat.”
Once he’d complied, she folded her hands in front of her on the desk. “I’m about to attend a very important meeting, one whose outcome will ultimately end up in CUORC’s lap. Let me bring you up to speed on the difficult situation we’re facing. Then I’m going to lay out the way I want this handled and the outcome I want you and CUORC to achieve.”
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Richard’s brows rose. CUORC was a joint entity that consisted of their own representatives and representatives from the Department of Justice. The Committee met bimonthly at headquarters, and made its own independent recommendations. It was unprecedented—although well within Patricia’s power to do so—for her to insert herself in the decision-making process.
