Rules of Betrayal

60

Peter Erskine greeted Connor as he walked through the door to Division. “Frank, am I glad to see you. The phone’s been ringing off the hook from Islamabad for the past hour. Where have you been?”

“Busy,” said Connor as he made a beeline through the operations center to his office. “What’s the big news?”

“The ISI is talking about a firefight at Balfour’s estate.”

“At Blenheim? Close the door behind you. Go on.”

Erskine shut the door to Connor’s office and leaned against it, arms crossed over his chest. “The ISI has been keeping a man on Balfour even though it withdrew protective custody. He said all hell broke loose about forty-five minutes ago. Small-arms fire. Grenades. RPGs. He wasn’t inside the compound perimeter, but from what he saw, it was a fierce little battle.”

“Any clue that it was Indian intelligence trying to snatch Balfour? The RAW’s had a hard-on for him since that Mumbai thing. They probably got wind he was blowing town and finally got up the guts to make their move.”

“No word. It’s too early to tell.”

“So that’s it? Small-arms fire? A couple grenades? How long did this ‘fierce little battle’ last?”

“A short while, maybe twenty minutes.”

Connor set down his satchel on his desk. “Hell, it was probably Balfour showing off some of his weapons.”

“I don’t think so. Two ambulances reportedly went to the estate.”

Connor snapped to attention. “Oh? Well, did they or didn’t they?”

“It’s Pakistan. What looks like an ambulance might be a repair truck. Anyway, they didn’t leave in a hurry.”

“Meaning whoever they went to look after was dead.”

Erskine approached the desk. “Have you heard from Jonathan Ransom?”

“He only arrived at the compound eight hours ago. I told him to keep quiet until he has something concrete. Find Colonel al-Faris and get him on the line. If it’s our boy who was killed, I want to know it. Try him at his home, and if he’s not there, at his mistress’s place.”

“Do you have her number?”

“It’s on file,” said Connor. “She works for us.”

Erskine turned to go, pausing at the door. “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. We got a response from the Brits about the picture of Prince Rashid’s associate we sent over to them-the creepy guy we couldn’t identify at Balfour’s hangar in Sharjah.”

Connor looked up sharply. “What about him?”

“They think he’s Massoud Haq. Sultan Haq’s older brother.”

“Can’t be. Massoud Haq is in Gitmo. They picked him up back at the beginning. He was a general in the Taliban army. Led a cavalry charge against a battalion from the 82nd Airborne Division. He’s a crazy one, all right. He’s as hardcore as they come.” Connor shook his head, shuddering at the possibility. “Nah, no way it’s him. He’s in custody for the duration.”

Erskine pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. “Massoud Haq was released six months ago,” he said. “I checked. The Department of Justice wrote a brief clearing him.”

“What?” Connor dropped into his chair, uttering a rare expletive. “Not another one. Half the guys we’re targeting these days spent time in Gitmo. Doesn’t anyone realize we’re fighting a war? Last time I checked, you didn’t release the enemy until they surrendered.” He paused and studied Erskine. “When exactly did you find this out, Pete?”

“It came in while you were gone.”

Connor considered the answer evasive but said nothing. He signaled that they were done, and Erskine left the room. Connor watched him return to his desk, wondering just how long ago that had really been. Demoralized and thoroughly pissed off, he opened his satchel and took out his legal pad and his BlackBerry. He scrolled through his messages but saw nothing from Danni. He called Mossad headquarters in Herzliya and this time demanded to speak to the director of the service.

“Frank, if I knew where Danni was, I’d tell you. She’s on leave. She could be anywhere. She has lots of miles racked up, you know what I mean? She’s due back in six days. The girl needs her rest.”

Connor hung up the phone, then placed a call to a closer destination: Fort Meade, Maryland, home of the National Security Agency, or NSA. The NSA was responsible for gathering signals intelligence from around the world. Essentially, this meant eavesdropping on every known mode of telecommunications, both terrestrial and satellite-based. His conversation was brief. He read off four telephone numbers and requested a log of all calls made to and from them for the past thirty days. The numbers belonged to Peter Erskine’s private cell phone, his company BlackBerry, his home landline, and his home fax.

Treason was a serious matter, and Connor was not about to point any fingers before marshaling his evidence. Until then, he’d have to do his utmost to restrict Erskine’s access to any and all information relating to Ransom’s search for the warhead. There was more to it than that. Erskine was only a pawn, a single node in a larger operation. Connor was more interested in discovering whom he worked for and breaking down the entire operation. Arrest Erskine now and his handlers would shut down and go into hiding. In six months’ time they’d be back, using new names and new aliases, with the same devilish intent of corrupting Division and its sister agencies within the intelligence community.

Connor followed the call to the NSA with one to an organization on his side of the Potomac, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN. FinCEN was one of the unsung heroes in the fight against terrorism. Created to investigate financial misdeeds within the United States, it had seen its portfolio increase significantly since 9/11 and was now the foremost actor in the international battle against terrorist finance.

Connor greeted his contact, supplied Erskine’s Social Security number, and requested a full workup on his financial history. He was most interested in Erskine’s bank accounts and asked that statements from the past six months be scrutinized with a view toward determining the identity of any person or party who might have transferred monies into the accounts. Requests like this were FinCEN’s bread and butter. Information would be forthcoming within twenty-four hours.

The office phone rang. Connor finished with FinCEN and picked up. “Yeah?”

“I’ve found Colonel al-Faris.”

“Thanks, Pete,” he said. “Put him through.”

A pause as the call was transferred.

“Frank-it is Nasser. It is very late here. Please tell me how I can be of assistance to my American friends.”

“Hello, Nasser,” began Connor. “I was interested in-” He stopped speaking in midsentence. Something had caught his attention.

A red cursor flashed on the screen of his computer monitor. A window opened, and a prompt read, “Remora 575 Active. Currently downloading 1 of 2,575 files.” An IP address followed. “Time remaining: two minutes.”

“Frank… are you there?”

“Holy mother of God,” said Connor, his eyes glued to the screen. “I gotta call you back.”

Remora 575 belonged to Jonathan Ransom. With amazement verging on disbelief, Connor stood motionless, watching as the files from Lord Balfour’s hard drive were copied and transferred onto his own.

And sometimes your prayers are answered even as the world is falling apart around you.