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“I didn’t say nothing. I said I didn’t find anything in his office. Across the street in a leased office we found some serious equipment.”
“How serious?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it. All passive stuff. You know how they always taught us to close the drapes so the lasers couldn’t pick up the vibrations on the glass?”
“Yeah.”
“Supposedly, it doesn’t matter with this stuff. Marcus knew about it. He said it’s the latest version developed by your boys in S and T.”
Coleman was referring to the Science and Technology people at Langley. They were the whiz kids of surveillance equipment and they also happened to work very closely with the men and women in Security at Langley, which meant Johnson would have gotten to know plenty of them over the years. Still, Rapp asked, “If it’s brand-new and Johnson no longer works at Langley, what in the hell is he doing with it?”
“That’s a question you might want to ask Irene.”
“You think she knows?”
“I have no idea. This is your turf, not mine, but if I were you I’d pick up the phone and call her.”
“Later,” Rapp said as he got on the expressway. He doubted Irene knew anything about Johnson, but it was something he’d have to run down. “What else?”
“The shit’s wired to a fiber-optic line. It was being sent out in real time. Marcus thinks the recordings were probably run through a program, cleaned up, and ready for listening in less than a minute.”
“Does he think he can trace it?”
“He’s working on it right now, but he says fifty-fifty at best.”
“So, no hard evidence unless we catch him coming back to retrieve the equipment?”
Coleman considered it for moment and said, “If we brought in the feds, we could start rounding people up and find out who tells the biggest lie. We could probably even put some heat on the S and T guys to find out who gave Johnson the equipment, but . . .” Coleman’s voice trailed off. He didn’t even like the idea.
“We can’t bring in the feds, because we can’t tell them how we know the shit even exists.”
“Exactly.”
“Plus,” Rapp checked his side mirror and changed lanes, “I don’t feel like airing the CIA’s dirty laundry with some overzealous federal prosecutor.”
“I thought that’s what you’d say.”
“So why are we going downtown?”
“Because that’s where Johnson is.”
Rapp glanced sideways at Coleman. “And why would I want to see him right now?”
“Because he’s running with a crowd that should make you nervous.”
“Who?”
“Russians. Lots of them.”
“Is he working for them?” Rapp asked, more than a little surprised.
“I couldn’t prove it in a court of law, at least not yet, but these aren’t the kind of guys who hang out with fat, fiftysomething retired CIA security officers because they have a good sense of humor.”
“What kind of Russians?”
“The kind with lots of money.”
“Shit.” Rapp was pissed off. “The worst kind. Former KGB guys?”
