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The screen changed, and Rapp looked at the second photo, the one of the victim lying in the street. “How about a face shot?” The screens changed, and the first photo appeared. Rapp tilted his head and studied the photo for a second. “Can you access the Seven Dwarves from here?” Rapp was referring to the seven Cray supercomputers in the basement at Langley.
Dumond smiled. “I can access anything from anywhere.”
“Great. Get me in there.”
Dumond slid over to a second computer and began typing. Rapp turned to Coleman. “I think I might know this guy.”
“From where?”
“It was an operation we ran in France. I received some logistical support from a guy who used to work for the Agency. He had this big fella working for him…he was massive. Big huge hands and a head you wouldn’t believe. We called his boss the Frog.”
“I’m in,” said Dumond. “Do you want me to look up Todd Sherman?”
“Was that the name on the autopsy?”
“Yeah.”
Rapp thought about it for a second. “I doubt it’s his real name, but we might as well give it a try.”
Dumond went to work. The computer came up with thirty-one Todd Shermans. “Do you want me to narrow the search?”
“Yeah.”
Dumond typed in a range for age and a brief physical description. The list was narrowed to eleven. Rapp and Coleman pulled up chairs, and Dumond began scrolling through the files. All but two of them had photographs attached, and the two that didn’t were for a man in his sixties and another in his seventies.
“Try Kyle,” said Rapp. “That was one of his contact names.”
“First or last name?”
“I don’t know. Put it in as an alias, and let’s see what you come up with.”
Dumond did as he was told and said, “You’re not going to like what we get back.” Surprisingly, the search came back with a matching request of 1,462 files.
“Shit.” Rapp leaned back and clasped his hands behind his neck.
“I bet there are more than a billion dossiers in this system.”
“Are you serious?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“How can that be?” asked Coleman.
“Easy. They have individuals from all over the globe in this thing, and it goes back at least a hundred years.”
“Let’s work on the search criteria and see if we can narrow this thing down.” Rapp leaned in to study the screen and began telling Dumond what to type.
THE EXPRESS CARPET cleaner van drove up Garfield and passed the Washington Cathedral. After crossing Massachusetts Avenue and then Wisconsin half a block later, it started down the hill. Four blocks later, it took a right onto New Mexico and stopped in front of a large brick apartment building. Two men got out, and the third stayed behind the wheel. They were wearing leather gloves and light blue coveralls with the company logo embroidered over the left breast. Both men also wore baseball hats, sunglasses, and fanny packs. The shorter man carried a clipboard.
The two men stepped into the foyer of the apartment building, and the taller one picked up the security phone and began looking over the list of tenants. When he found the woman’s name, he punched in the number for her unit and counted the rings. He didn’t expect anyone to answer. The other man casually pulled a device from his pocket that looked like a cross between a gun and a fancy wine bottle opener. It was, in fact, a lock-pick gun. He put the pick into the lock and shielded his movements with the clipboard. In less than five seconds, he had the door open. The other man hung up the phone, and they entered the lobby. They walked past the elevators and took the stairs up to the fourth floor.
Before leaving the stairwell, they cracked the door and looked down the hallway. The only thing that could stop them at this point was a nosy neighbor. They had no idea who had hired them. It had been handled by a simple phone call and some directions on where to pick up the package. It was a dead drop out at the Tyson’s Corner shopping mall. The manila envelope contained a brief bio of the target and a laundry list of things their unknown employer would like to know. It also contained ten thousand dollars in crisp one-hundred-dollar bills. Twice their normal rate, and considering who the target was, they felt they deserved every penny of it. They knew who the woman was. They had all seen her on TV. She was beautiful. In light of her job, they had decided someone with
deep pockets wasn’t too happy about a story she was working on and was probably looking for a little insurance policy. They had done this type of job before. Almost everyone had things they would like kept a secret.
The chances of her coming home were slim, and if she did, there were people near the White House watching her who would alert them. They emerged from the stairwell and walked softly down the hall. When they reached her door, the short man went to work again. This time, it took him eight seconds to break in. Both men stepped into the apartment and closed the door. The tall one latched the security chain and looked through the peep hole to see if they had aroused anyone’s curiosity. After ten seconds, he gave up the vigil and went to work. Pulling out a small radio, he told the man down on the street that they were in. The driver moved the van to a parking spot, where he could watch the street and the entrance to the apartment building.
Methodically, starting with the bedroom, the two men began an inventory of everything in the apartment. A journal was found on the bedside nightstand, and every page was photographed. Bugs were planted in each room, and their location was noted on a quick sketch. They were required to present their employer with a floor plan of the apartment marking the exact location of each device and the frequency.
