The End Game (A Brit in the FBI 3)

This wasn’t good. But then again, after actually being in the middle of the havoc that bomb had created, she wasn’t all that surprised. “So we’re talking some sort of advanced technology?”

“Very advanced nanotechnology, and that word gives us all chills after Manfred Havelock and his micro-nukes.

“It’s a very different bomb from the others COE have used—plain old Semtex. So what’s this all about? Where did COE get this marvel? And what are their plans now? That’s what the CIA better tell us.

“Oh, yes,” Zachery continued, “we finally identified a badly burned body in the blast center—it’s your drunk barfly, Larry Reeves.”

“I guess I’m not surprised. The man made a very poor decision.”

“Ben’s been taking apart his financials. We’ll find the thread.”

“Sir, there’s something else. This meeting with the CIA—they’re going to tell us about how they had an undercover agent in the group. Her name is Vanessa Grace, she’s the redheaded woman, and her uncle is her handler. He’s the one who wants to meet with us.”

Silence, then, “Her uncle? When Carl Grace called me, needless to say, he didn’t tell me about his niece. Talk about tough—can you imagine? Well, now, this meeting with Grace at Langley, I imagine the CIA finally understands they can’t keep us in the dark any longer spouting their party line—protect state secrets, jeopardize national security, blah, blah, blah.”

“Sir, I know her, I know Vanessa Grace, or I did. We were at Yale together, in the same undergrad psych program.”

Zachery whistled. “Tell me about her.”

“I remember she was smart, very steady, capable, but it’s been eight years since I saw her last. It looks like she was the female victim from the Brooklyn fire, and also we’ll find her on the videotapes from Bayway. I saw her this morning on one of the feeds before we left for Brooklyn. I didn’t recognize her then, but I knew the woman seemed familiar. Ben was running the tapes for me.”

“No idea if she’s still alive?”

“No, sir. But you know what this means—the CIA had an agent operating undercover on American soil. Big no-no.”

“Indeed,” Zachery said, and she could practically hear him mentally sorting through everything.

She said, “Is there anything new on the Hodges crime scene in Bayonne, sir?”

“Nothing good, Mike. Ballistics are back. Our three agents were shot with a nine-millimeter. The bullet fragments were recovered, but the rifling hasn’t matched anything in our databases. All we know is the gun wasn’t used in any other crimes. There aren’t any extraneous latent fingerprints, no DNA to speak of outside our agents’ and Mr. Hodges’s. Whoever did this was clean and thorough, and we have very little to go on. The families, Mike, the notifications, some of the toughest I’ve ever had to do.” He was silent for a moment, then, “You and Drummond get down to Langley, have this meeting, find out how this is all going to work with Savich, and brief me immediately on what’s happening. There’s a chopper waiting for you at the heliport. I’ve sent an agent with your go-bags.”

“Thank you, sir, I appreciate knowing I’ll have my toothbrush, although I don’t think those sharks at the CIA deserve a nice fresh breath.”

“Stay in touch, Mike. And be careful. There are still too many unknowns, too many secrets. You know as well as I do there’s something a lot bigger going down. I’ll do my best to find out what’s happening from my end, too.” He hung up.

Nicholas joined her. “Adam Pearce is a miracle worker.”

“A miracle hacker, you mean. What’d he find for us?”

“Maybe a trail of bread crumbs leading to the money. We need to have a talk with a Wall Street broker named Porter Wallace. Though by the look on your face I assume we have new marching orders yet again.”

“Yes. We’re to take a helicopter to Langley. Kick some CIA butt. Think you’re up for that?”

Nicholas looked over at Swanson. He flexed his bruised hand and smiled. “Yes, oh, yes, Agent Caine.”

47

QUEEN TO B4

George Washington University Hospital

When Carl Grace raced to the nurses’ counter, he was told there was nothing new on Vanessa. He sucked in a breath. That meant she was still alive.

He calmed himself; he had work to do. He found an empty conference room, closed the door, and sat down. He put on his headphones and started to dissect the past four months of data Vanessa had sent him to prep for his meeting with the FBI.

He found himself not really seeing the words, but rather remembering. It seemed like only yesterday when he’d gotten word in 1995 that his brother, Paul Grace, had been killed in Northern Ireland, leaving an orphaned daughter, Vanessa. The very next week, the aunt who was taking care of Vanessa was killed in an auto accident. Carl had immediately asked to be brought back to Langley, and adopted Vanessa. He remembered clearly when she was ten, Vanessa had found one of her father’s diaries and brought it to him, saying in an unwavering, overly adult voice, “Uncle Carl, I want to do what my dad did and what you do,” and that had been that. She’d never wavered from her goal, though Carl had done his best to tell her how fragile, how fragmented such a life could be, how it made children into orphans, as she knew firsthand. It had made no difference, Vanessa was committed. He remembered how she begged for the undercover case in Northern Ireland, where her father had died, and look where it had led.

She could be dying now, and like then, there was nothing he could do about it. Even though Spenser had shot her, Carl had put the weapon in his hand when he’d sent that ill-timed text.