Conspiracy

16

“The attack on Senator McSweeney involved at least two people: the man with a pistol, who appears to have been a decoy, and the actual shooter, who was located in this building across the way.”

The screen flashed as a picture of the office building across from the hotel appeared. Dean rolled his arms together in front of his chest, leaning back in the seat. He hadn’t been able to sleep on the plane coming back from Montana, nor had there been time for anything more than a quick nap before reporting to the Desk Three operations center in the basement of OPS/2B.

A face flashed on the screen. It belonged to a man about thirty years old. He had buzz-cut chestnut hair and a moon-shaped bruise below each eye. He seemed to be in pain.

“This was the decoy,” said Hernes Jackson, standing at the side of the room as he gave the briefing. “He had a pellet gun that looked like a Beretta. His name is Arthur Findley.” Jackson clicked the remote control in his hand, bringing two more pictures of Findley on the screen. In both, Findley looked heavily medicated, with a vacant gaze.

“Mr. Findley has been in and out of mental institutions for several years. His last known address was at an outpatient facility in Washington, D.C., two years ago,” continued Jackson. “Since then, he’s had no known address. He’s apparently somewhat well-known to the homeless community.

He seems to have been approached by a man who called himself John a few days ago. The man befriended him by giving him money, and eventually asked him to show up with the gun in front of the hotel.”

“And he didn’t have a problem with that?” asked Lia, sitting to Dean’s right. She’d already been here when Dean arrived, and seemed quiet, almost contemplative. They’d barely had a chance to say hello before the briefing began.

“Mr. Findley appears to have the mental age of a five-year-old,” said Jackson. “He clearly didn’t understand the implications. We have a sketch of the man, based on Mr. Findley’s descriptions.”

A nondescript computer-generated face appeared on the screen. He was white, of average height, maybe middle-aged.

“Needless to say, the FBI has come up with no real information about this person, John. There’s nothing in the Secret Service files, either.”

“What about the real shooter?” asked Lia.

Jackson shook his head. “Nothing. He appears to have used a stock Remington rifle with store-bought ammunition. They have that from the bullet. The thinking is the shooter wasn’t a professional. The shot was taken at eighty-five yards.” Dean grunted. On a range, eighty-five yards was nothing, not for a sniper or even a well-trained Marine. But in real life, with adrenaline flowing like beer in a biker bar, it could feel like miles.

Jackson said that the FBI was working to attempt to identify where the bullet had been purchased. But tracking ammunition wasn’t easy, especially when the ammo was relatively common, and so far the efforts had proved fruitless.

“The FBI identified the office from the trajectory of the shot,” continued Jackson. “There was nothing there — no spent shell, no trace of anything. All of the windows in that floor were open. The building has been vacant for about five months. No eyewitness has come forward. Two people in the area believed they saw an Asian man in the building a few days before.”

“Not much of a description,” said Lia.

“It may be significant,” said Jackson. “Which brings me to the second half of our briefing.”

“Let me preface the ambassador’s brief by saying that the relationship of this incident to Special Agent Forester’s death has yet to be determined,” interrupted Rubens. “There may in fact be no relationship at all. The only point of connection is that Forester was tracking down threats against the senator when he died. It is that investigation that concerns us.” Jackson flashed a picture of a Secret Service agent named Gerald Forester on the screen, explaining who he was and the fact that he had died about a week before the attempt on McSweeney. While the state police and the FBI had initially concluded that McSweeney had committed suicide, the head of the Secret Service had pressed his own agency to check into other possibilities.

“The lead investigator, an agent by the name of Mandarin, has also been assigned to this case,” said Jackson.

“That’s not necessarily a coincidence, though Mandarin is regarded as one of their top investigators.” Jackson added that Mandarin had told him that he thought Forester had killed himself because “that’s where the evidence is,” but that the agency wasn’t going to close out the case any time soon.

“Prior to his death, Agent Forester made some inquiries by e-mail to a person in Vietnam. He wanted to talk to someone there, though it’s not clear why. We don’t know what he intended to ask or hoped to find out. We don’t even know for sure who it was he was trying to talk to. We have narrowed down the number of possibilities to three, all of whom both have a connection to the present government and were involved somehow in the war. That’s significant because Vietnam was believed to have been working on a program to assassinate American leaders three years ago.”

“And that,” said Ruben dryly, “is why you are here and we are involved.”

Jackson continued to fill in details, noting that McSweeney had served in Vietnam, which would make him an excellent candidate for a revenge plot. He also admitted that there was considerable room for skepticism. The NSA had a “robust” system in place for intercepting and monitoring Vietnamese communications, official and otherwise, and while these were being reviewed, no information had been gathered that revealed an assassination plot.

“Also, if Agent Forester thought that the threat originated from Vietnam, he would have communicated that to his superiors,” added Jackson. “And he did not.”

“Maybe he didn’t get the chance,” said Lia.

“Possibly.”

“What did McSweeney do in Vietnam?” Dean asked.

“He was a Marine officer,” said Jackson. “Toward the end of the war, he served as a commanding officer with the strategic hamlet program in Quang Nam Province, outside of Da Nang.”

“I know where it is,” said Dean.

It was the same area where he had served. He didn’t know McSweeney, though he had heard of the strategic hamlet program — a risky, typically Marine-type program that had troops live with the Vietnamese. It was a good idea or a loony idea depending on who was talking about it. They all agreed it hadn’t worked.

“How do you feel about Vietnam, Charlie?” asked Rubens.

Dean shrugged. “I don’t feel anything particularly.”

“Very well. Then I want you and Lia to go there and find Agent Forester’s contact and see if you can get him to shed light on his message.” He looked at his watch. “Spend the rest of the day familiarizing yourself with Agent Forester and his investigation. Be back and ready to leave this eve ning.”