Sigma Division

Chapter 19

Still feeling the rush of the day’s illegal activities, Ned walked into his bungalow and tossed his jacket over a chair as he entered the kitchen. It was a miracle he hadn’t been caught. He opened the fridge and scanned its content, searching for dinner. It was like he somehow expected the Grocery Fairy to have garnished his refrigerator.

His phone started ringing and he backed out of the appliance, bringing with him a Tupperware container.

“Hello?” he said as he popped off the lid and took a whiff of the food. Chicken or Fish? It was a mystery.

“Ned, it’s me.” Spicer. “I’m sorry to ask but I need your help again.”

The young man shook his head absentmindedly and set the food on the counter.

“I already took one hell of a risk.”

Right then, the front door opened and his wife came in. She looked 15 months pregnant and she was carrying two suitcases. She looked around and her face fell when she noticed that decor hadn’t changed. It still looked like a cheap aviation museum.

“I knew it, I knew it…”

Ned smiled privately when he heard her. He went to the kitchen’s entrance to look at her, barely hearing Spicer going on in the phone.

“Come on, I thought you were the kind of guy who took risks for the hell of it.”

The pregnant woman approached the kitchen and they both stared at each other for a moment. Suddenly, all his priorities were straight.

“Not anymore, Spicer. I’m sorry. Good luck.”

He hung up and it was the easiest decision he’d ever made.

“Ned, why does my living room still look like a second-rate airport lounge?”

“I missed you, baby.” He walked the short distance to her and took her in his arms. “We’ll redecorate, baby. I’ll do it tonight.”

She was puzzled as he hugged her a little stronger and longer than usual.

“What happened when I was away? What did you do?”

“I just love you so much.”

She still wasn’t too sure about what was going on but she hugged him back. All was right in the world.

Spicer needed an ally. He’d spent most of his life working alone but the situation was bigger than anything he’d ever encountered. He couldn’t handle it by himself. Luckily, there was one man he could trust above everyone else.

He was standing on Kilmer’s porch and in less than two minutes he was able to summarize the entire state of affairs. However, by saying this on the porch, his friend not letting him in, this told him it would be an uphill battle. Kilmer was in his bathrobe, holding the door almost closed to avoid cold air from getting in and to keep from being overheard.

Kilmer exhaled and shook his head. “You’re seriously brain damaged, you know that?”

“All I need is to get in with you. Once I’m through the first checkpoint, I can easily bypass the others.”

Kilmer looked down for a moment, pondering his decision. Spicer had just asked him a huge favor.

“You’re the last chance I got to make it right, Doug.”

“You know, when most people retire, they take up arts and crafts. You’re the only one I know whose idea of a good time is to break into CIA headquarters.”

Spicer shrugged. “I also like needlepoint.”

He winked.

The ride to Langley took forever and Kilmer kept quiet from the beginning. Spicer decided not to push his luck and kept his mouth shut as well. If the security team at the gate checkpoint was suspicious of them showing up right before midnight, they didn’t show it. These days, with sensitive missions being conducted overseas on a routine basis, it wasn’t out of the ordinary for senior personnel to be at CIA headquarters at night.

After parking, Kilmer walked into the building with Spicer in tow. The latter was carrying his little red gym bag. They walked to the security station where the guard was fighting boredom by drinking coffee.

Kilmer said “I have an S-T four clearance. I’m taking this man up to my office.”

This was the magic formula. Spicer was ordered to go through a metal detector, as was his gym bag, but within moments he was issued a temporary pass and the two men were waved through.

In the elevator, Kilmer became jittery.

“Why did you come here anyway? What do you expect to find?”

“The guy who wanted to blow up the psych lab in Virginia, we took his notes. I was fired before I could see them, they were being analyzed by forensics.”

“Sure you can do this?”

Spicer nodded and put on rubber gloves before producing a small device the size of a cigarette pack from his bag. It had gone through security by being stuffed in the wooly case he usually employed to sneak his weapon through security checkpoints.

“CIA gave me the most sophisticated high-tech gadgets. They fucked themselves and they don’t even know it.”

The car stopped on the second floor.

“I’ll see you in your office in 20 minutes.”

Coming out of the elevator, Kilmer took off to the right while Spicer headed left. Every second neon on the ceiling was turned off and it made him feel like he was in a hospital at night. At least the place was deserted.

He followed a corridor until he reached a closed the glass door. There was a keypad and a slot for a card ID. This was completely expected. He extended a card-thin circuit board from his little device and inserted it into the slot. He pushed a button on the side and it began to hum.

A security camera was conspicuous in the corner but there was nothing he could do about it. He didn’t even glance at it to call attention to himself. After nine seconds, a seven-digit number appeared on the digital readout panel of his gadget and he punched it in the keypad.

The door clicked open and he slipped through it.

Walking briskly, he went through a series of cubicles until he spotted a glowing EXIT sign. He headed in that direction, got to the staircase, and climbed the steps down two by two.

Back on the ground floor and away from prying eyes, he went to the B wing. He worked on controlling his breathing as he did the taxi driver maneuver. That’s what he called it when he scanned addresses, looking for the right number on a door. At last, he located B-1943.

Thank God for systems integration, he thought. The keypad system was the same throughout the building. He pulled out his device again and plugged it in so it could find the passcode. A few seconds later he walked in.

He pulled out his cell phone so he could use it as a flashlight and the first thing he noticed was the nameplate on the desk. It read Clara Mailley.

Clara?