'There's no need for any special action at your end. Just be at the meeting, Roberts,' he said gruffly.
Then she was listening to a dial tone and cursing under her breath. This was one situation where shewould know what was happening, because she could not afford not to.
*
At 0750 Cam walked down the deserted corridor outside Stuart Carlisle's office. Some of the rooms in the warren of offices that opened off the industrial-tiled hallway were already occupied, but many doors were still shut, awaiting secretaries and staff to arrive for the workday. She pushed open the door stenciled with the word 'Conference' and stepped into another of the generic rooms that seemed to comprise all government buildings. She nodded to the redhead, a woman she had never seen before, already seated at the table.
A long rectangular conference table crowded the center of the room, surrounded by a number of straight- backed chairs. A coffee caddie stood in one corner. She moved around the end of the table, helped herself to coffee, and settled into a chair opposite the woman who was reading a stack of papers she appeared to have taken from the open briefcase beside her. Neither of them acknowledged each other beyond their first neutral nod, assuming that eventually whoever would be running the meeting would make the appropriate introductions.
Over the course of the next ten minutes, the door opened three times, each time admitting a man dressed in the regulation garb of a government agent. Navy blue blazers, gray flannel trousers, white shirts and rep ties abounded in the Department of the Treasury building as well as the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and every other security agency on Capitol Hill. The last person to enter was Cam's direct supervisor, Stuart Carlisle. They had known each other for over a decade and were probably as close to friends as one could be in that kind of environment. Each understood that regardless of personal feelings, the system they served had the ultimate power, and, like all governments, was not immune to error. Error that sometimes destroyed careers and lives. They also both believed that however flawed, it was probably the best version currently available.
Carlisle nodded to her briefly and proceeded to the head of the table. From the end opposite him, a mid- forties, iron-gray haired man, thin and fit appearing, coolly appraised each individual in the room. Across from Cam, to the left of the redhead, a man about Cam's age with a faint five o'clock shadow who looked like he might have played football in college, sat staring at her, something hard in his gaze. Cam did not recognize any of the other people present, but she recognized the type. The woman, early thirties, short well-cut hair, understated make-up, conservative suit, had a look of self-contained confidence that suggested she didn't work for any of the men in the room. An independent consultant or perhaps a forensic analyst. She had apparently come to give an opinion, and she probably didn't care about inter-agency politics. The men were a different matter all together. The two men in addition to Carlisle were FBI, CIA, or both. They were unsmiling, faintly belligerent looking, and plainly annoyed -- probably because the meeting wasn't on their turf. That concerned Cam. Because if the meeting was here on her ground, it suggested that it had to do with Blair, and that worried her more than she cared to admit.
Carlisle, at precisely 0800, began to speak. 'Let's get the introductions out of the way. Secret Service Agent Cameron Roberts, who commands Egret's security detail,' he said, nodding at Cam, his eyes unreadable as they skimmed over hers. Indicating the gray-haired man at the far end of the table, he went on, 'Robert Owens, National Security Agency. Special Agent Lindsey Ryan, from the behavioral science division of the FBI,' signifying the redhead, 'and,' pointing to the man opposite Cam, 'Patrick Doyle, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI task force investigating Lover Boy.'
Cam stiffened but her expression remained carefully neutral. Lover Boy was the code name assigned to the man who had stalked Blair Powell the previous year, leaving her messages, photographing her, and presumably making an assassination attempt which had resulted in Cam being wounded. This was the first that she had heard of any ongoing task force. The fact that Mac had not mentioned it led her to believe he was unaware of it also. Which meant the investigation had been taken out of the hands of the Secret Service, leaving the people directly responsible for Blair's safety in the dark. She was furious, but she needed more information before she knew precisely where to direct her anger. So she listened, her fists clenched under the table, her jaws clamped tightly enough to make her teeth ache.
For a moment, the room was silent as they each took stock of one another. Then the NSA man cleared his throat and said in a hoarse voice, 'I'll let Doyle bring you up to speed on recent domestic developments. You'll find a summary of current information and analyses in the binder.' He began to pass prepared folders to each of them from a stack he had carried in with him. 'From a national security standpoint, we're concerned about the President's upcoming summit meetings on the global warming agreement with the European council members next month. In addition, he'll be attending the World Trade Organization meeting in Quebec in just a few days. Any act of terrorism, including an attack on Egret, would obviously disrupt those plans.'
'We don't have anything to indicate that Lover Boy is a member of any group, national or international, with a political agenda,' Doyle said, his voice hard-edged with a hint of Midwestern accent. His tone and expression suggested that he wasn't overly interested in Owens's national security issues.
'Nothing in the psychological profile suggests that he is philosophically or politically motivated,' Lindsey Ryan, the behavioral scientist, interjected. ''The message content - poetic verses, sexual ideation, the fixation on knowing where she is and what she's doing - these things indicate a distorted sense of reality. Nevertheless, his ability to make repeated contact with her, and effectively elude capture for a prolonged period of time, indicates an intelligent and highly organized personality. Nevertheless, all of his focus has been her. He's obsessed withher . This isn't about the President.'
'We have to assume that anything directed at Egret, even remotely, is related to the President,' Owens said testily, his remarks clearly directed at Doyle.
Cam, working hard to contain her temper, listened to the two men engage in verbal debate while ignoring the obvious importance of Ryan's assessment. It was clear to her that Blair was of much less concern to either man than establishing who had the greater stake in seeing the UNSUB captured.
'Exactly where do we stand on the degree of penetration as far as Egret is concerned?' Cam asked, barely managing to keep the wrath out of her voice. She needed to know how close this psychopath had managed to get to Blair this time.
Doyle, looking impatient, raised his voice a notch and continued as if no one else had said anything. 'Until the last ten days, all contacts from Lover Boy have occurred via electronic transmission, specifically Internet messages, delivered directly to the subject's personal email accounts. Despite our attempts to trace the point of origin, we have been unable to verify a source. Changing Egret's accounts, rerouting through substations and aliases, and erecting electronic filters has all been ineffective. His messages to date have been,' he hesitated a moment as if considering how to phrase his comments, then continued, 'mostly of a sexually suggestive nature.'
