no team, Carlton had to do everything he could to identify and stop it.
He’d had a growing feeling that it was going to come down to something like this. Now he was certain. It was time to develop and launch his own attack. Looking at his watch, he hoped Tommy Banks was up to the challenge.
CHAPTER 51
MARYLAND
Ha, ha! See?” Middleton exclaimed as he reread the e-mail. “I told you Banks was the guy we needed to watch.”
Schroeder was impressed. “How’d you know Carlton would reach out to him?”
“Because. If there’s one thing I know from years of studying data, it’s people.”
“This is a pretty obscure e-mail account,” the younger man said, tapping his screen. “Are we sure it belongs to Carlton?”
“It’s his all right.” Middleton elbowed him out of the way, took control of his mouse, and three clicks later brought up a diagram tracing the e-mails that had been sent to and from the account. “It’s one of those Runbox.com e-mail addresses out of Norway that people think we can’t crack. It hasn’t been used that many times, but look at the interaction; all accounts tied to people on Carlton’s relationship tree.”
“But his message to Banks doesn’t make any sense.”
Middleton rolled his eyes. “You’ve got a lot to learn. He’s requesting a meeting. He’s got something for Banks.”
Schroeder’s eyes went wide. “You don’t think he’s talking about the flash drive, do you?”
“I don’t have a fucking clue, but whatever he’s got, we want it.”
“What if what he’s got is Harvath? Do we want that?”
Middleton drew his hand back as if he was going to strike him, but then got control of himself. Though Chuck Bremmer wasn’t ready to concede the Texas operation, none of his operators had been heard from in more than twelve hours. It was obvious what had happened. It was a disaster. Three times, Bremmer had sent teams to kill Harvath, and three times his teams had failed. Middleton had torn the Colonel a new asshole and the two had almost come to blows inside the SCIF at the Pentagon.
Schroeder had a point, though. What if it was Harvath that Carlton had, or information as to his whereabouts? Even more important, what if Carlton had been passed Caroline Romero’s flash drive? What if Carlton was using Banks to take everything public in order to help clear his name?
Any of those scenarios was more than plausible. Middleton’s biggest challenge was deciding how they should handle the meeting between Banks and Carlton. The cloak-and-dagger stuff wasn’t Middleton’s forte. That said, it didn’t appear to be Bremmer’s either. Somehow Harvath had been able to smell those kill teams coming from a mile away. They’d have to take care of this in-house.
“If Harvath’s a part of this,” Middleton replied, “I’ll take care of it. Do we know where Banks is right now?”
Schroeder nodded at his mouse and when his boss let go of it, he used it to pull up another screen. “It looks like he’s at home.”
“Good. I’ll assign some of our security people for surveillance. Keep monitoring his communications. The minute Carlton sets a time or a place for their meeting, I want to know about it.”
When Middleton returned to his office, Martin Vignon, his chief of security, was already waiting in one of the chairs. Even from across the room, Middleton could see the man’s blue veins beneath his pale, nearly transparent skin.
Crossing the office and sitting down at his desk, Middleton summoned up a fake smile for Vignon. He didn’t like the fact that the man had made himself right at home.
Vignon’s pale lips curled into what should have been a smile but looked more like a sneer. It all but vanished when Middleton tilted his head toward the door he’d purposely left open and said, “Close it.”
It was a petty power play. The security chief stared at Middleton for a moment before rising from his seat to carry out the command.
Middleton noticed that Vignon didn’t use his hands to push himself up and out of the chair. Even in his fifties, the security man was quite fit.
When Vignon retook his seat, Middleton spoke, “If I ask you to follow an eighty-eight-year-old man and not fuck it up, do you think you can handle it?”
“Which part? Following an octogenarian, or being asked if I can do it without
Middleton smiled. This time it was genuine. While he didn’t care very much for Vignon, at least the pasty- faced man retained a modicum of self-respect. “Both.”
“What is it specifically you want?”
Middleton removed two folders and handed them to him as he spoke. One was for Thomas Banks, the other for Reed Carlton. Vignon flipped through them as Middleton went into everything in detail.
When he was done speaking, he looked at his security chief and asked, “How do we keep this quiet?”
“Obviously, we involve as few people as possible.”
“
Vignon did the math in his head. “For right now, we keep it very low-key. Two men in a car ready to follow him if he drives and another two men a block away who can follow on foot if he goes that way.”
“Why can’t you use the men in the car to follow on foot?”
“If the subject walks a block away and then has another vehicle parked or he hails a cab, you’ll want the team in the car immediately able to roll.”
Middleton didn’t like being reminded that he didn’t have the kind of mind for this sort of thing. “Fine. Two teams. But no more than that. And I want to make sure the men you use can be
Vignon had been around long enough to understand Middleton’s meaning by the way he pronounced the word
“
The question didn’t require a lot of thought. There was no sense reinventing the wheel. “Do you still have the location set up that you were going to use for Romero?”
“We cleaned the gear out, but we still have access to it, yes.”
“Then use it,” replied Middleton as he rose from his chair, indicating the meeting was over. “We’ll keep gathering intelligence on this side and feed you anything relevant.”
Vignon gathered the files from his lap and stood. “One last question.”
“What is it?”
“If this Scot Harvath does show up, what do you want us to do?”
Middleton didn’t waste a moment of thought. There was a perceptible tensing of his jaw as his teeth ground together and he said, “Don’t wait. Kill him.”
CHAPTER 52
VIRGINIA
MONDAY
