“Not quite,” Jason said. “This guy doesn’t believe in ‘political roadblocks’—if there’s a roadblock, he’d prefer to smash it in…”
“Which is what he’s going to do with our heads, once he finds out what we’re doing,” Ariadna said.
“So you’re talking about Special Agent Kelsey DeLaine then?” Kristen asked. Jason and Ari looked surprised —they had been careful not to mention the names of any other Task Force TALON members around Kristen Skyy. “I did a bit more checking and put two and two together. A combined military and FBI task force—very, very cool. DeLaine is one of the Bureau’s up-and-comers, but she’s not known for fieldwork—she’s an administrator.” She paused, looking at Richter carefully. “Interesting pick of persons to lead this task force. I would’ve expected a few more hairy-armed snake-eating ‘Rambo’ types to go after nuclear terrorists.”
“Me too,” Jason admitted. “But we have CID.”
“Why not give my information to Special Agent DeLaine and the rest of the task force? Why not do it as a team?”
“Because she won’t act on it, and they’ll shut down our source of information and most likely throw me in jail for involving the press in a classified government program,” Jason said. “Then the terrorists get away, the task force gets shut down or reshuffled, and no one wins except the bad guys.”
“You don’t trust her to share information or support your task force, is that it?”
“She would probably form an FBI task force herself to go down there and get the bad guys.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Kristen asked. “The goal is to get the terrorists, right? We could use all the help we can get.”
“This might not be the best way to do this,” Jason said, “but we’re going to do it anyway because we have actionable information and the means to respond.”
Ariadna sat beside Jason and lowered her head confidentially toward his. “This would be a good time to head to Fort Polk, J,” Ari said quietly. “We haven’t done anything really wrong yet, and CID One is really broken. Once we step off this plane in Brazil, we’re swimming in deep shit.”
“What do we do with Kristen’s hot tip?” Jason asked. “Should we just ignore information like she says she’s got?”
“We pass it on to DeLaine and the rest of the task force,” Ari said.
“We’re pressing on,” Jason said immediately. “Do the best you can with the replacement power pack and reattaching the door once we reach the target.” Ari looked at him carefully, silently questioning his judgment, but nodded and fell silent.
But Jason could feel her concern, and she knew after years of working together that Ariadna was rarely wrong. He pulled out his secure cellular phone and pressed some buttons.
“Go ahead, Jason,” Kelsey responded moments later.
“I need to talk with you, Kelsey,” Jason said.
“We’re in the middle of a briefing. Can’t it wait?”
“No.”
Kelsey sighed and said something to the others in the room with her. “Okay, go ahead.”
“I saw something on SATCOM One News about a connection between a terror cell in South America and the attack on Kingman City,” Jason said.
“I saw it too,” Kelsey responded after a noticeable pause. “We’re still checking, Jason,” Kelsey went on. “The Bureau’s got nothing to go on yet.”
“Kelsey…” Jason paused a moment, then went on: “Kelsey, I’ve received some information about a group calling itself GAMMA that might have had a…”
“Have you been tapping my computer and phone conversations, Richter?” Kelsey blurted.
“No, I haven’t,” Jason said.
“Then where did you hear about GAMMA?”
“It’s no secret, Kelsey…”
“Where did you hear about a connection between GAMMA and Kingman City?”
“My source doesn’t want to be revealed just yet,” Jason said, “but I think it’s good information, and I have enough that I think we should act on it. This group GAMMA was involved in Kingman City—how, I’m not sure yet. But my source may know where one of its leaders may be hiding in the next few hours. But they only stay put for a day at the most—we’ve got no time to waste if we want a chance to catch him.”
“How specific is your information?”
“Location down to one or two harbors; time, down to twenty-four hours.”
“One or two harbors?” Kelsey asked incredulously. “It would take hundreds of men to search an area that size, and another hundred to secure it. There’s no way we can…”
“Two CID units along with the Goose drones can do it alone,” Jason said.
“In that short a time span? Impossible.” But as soon as she said that, she knew that it was certainly doable —they had spotted several small targets inside that oil refinery complex during their training exercise without any trouble.
“It’s possible, and we’ve got no time to waste,” Jason urged. “I’ve drawn up a plan. I’d like to take the team and both CID units and go down to South America to…”
“South America! You can’t just blast off to another country with a task force just like that.”
“We can, and we have to. It can’t wait.”
“No way, Jason,” Kelsey said. “If you have actionable information, you need to present it to Chamberlain, Jefferson, and the rest of the task force. We’ll verify the information and draw up a plan.”
“It can’t wait,” Jason said. “In twelve hours it’ll be too late—we need to head down there now. I’ve got a plane standing by that can take us to Brazil tonight.”
“Brazil?” She paused. Then she said, “Where are you now, Richter? Where’s Dr. Vega? You’re not…?”
“I’m sure Jefferson can get us clearance,” Jason said. “C’mon, Kelsey, we need to move on this. Trust me.”
“Who’s your source, Major?”
“I can’t reveal it just yet…”
“So you can’t trust me either, huh?” Kelsey asked accusingly.
Jason hesitated for a few moments, then he continued. “A wellknown international TV correspondent got me the information, and has a high degree of confidence in its accuracy,” he said. “She’s laid the groundwork for us to…”
“She?” Kelsey interrupted. “A well-known female international TV correspondent…?”
“You’d recognize her immediately,” Jason said. “I’ve spoken to her on condition of complete anonymity…”
“You’ve spoken to her? About the task force? About CID…?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever heard of the concept of keeping a secret, Major?” Kelsey asked hotly. “Obviously not, because you seem to violate it every chance you get. What did you tell her about us?”
“She made contact with me and gave me information on this terror group,” Jason said. “She thought we could act on the information. All she wanted in exchange was to get exclusive access to our activities and…”
“She made contact with you, huh…wait a minute, wait a minute…that TV reporter you rescued in Kingman City…Skyy, Kristen Skyy, SATCOM One News. Jesus, Richter, she’ll blow our organization wide open in no time! We’ll have an army of reporters camped outside the front gate and flying overhead from now until doomsday! We won’t be able to go to the latrine without a camera crew taking pictures of it…”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Richter, you’ve blown it big time, and you are in a world of shit,” Kelsey said. “I suggest you get your butts back here immediately and report everything you’ve been up to with this reporter.”
“What about the information on GAMMA?”
“If her information pans out, then we’ll use that source again in the future.”
“But we may miss our opportunity to…”
“That’s the way it goes, Major,” Kelsey said. “Sources are verified by receiving a certain quantity of validated information, and most times their information is validated by something bad happening. Once we take the task force off the base, we expose ourselves to counterespionage forces and a lot of official and unofficial scrutiny. We can’t
