Stone Cold

CHAPTER 22

THE NEXT MORNING, while Reuben and Milton drove to Atlantic City, Harry Finn was also busy. He and two team members were surveying a parcel of land near the United States Capitol. Their uniforms were perfect, their equipment spot-on. Most importantly, they exuded the confident air of people who had every right to be where they were. When two Capitol police officers approached them, Finn calmly pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and showed the pair his official-looking orders.

“I just go where they send me, guys,” he said apologetically. “We won’t be here much longer. It’s the damn visitor center project.”

“You mean that taxpayer hell pit?” one of the cops growled. The project had become D.C.’s version of the Big Dig fiasco in Boston.

Finn nodded. “You know in this town everybody thinks somebody else has jurisdiction. So we have to do the same thing ten times because somebody’s panties got in a wad.”

“Tell me about it,” the other cop said. “Just make it quick.”

“Roger that,” Finn said, turning back to his work.

The surveyor’s apparatus they were using was actually a video camera currently filming two entrances to the Capitol building and detailing the rotation of security guards and other essential elements for a successful penetration later. Ever since a man had broken through the Capitol security perimeter with comparative ease, several high-ranking pols had been livid. They had secretly retained Finn’s company to test whether the “enhanced” security measures put in place were the real fix or not. From what Finn had seen so far, they clearly weren’t.

Back at the office, Finn spent the next two hours “phone freaking.” This was a complex exercise involving phoning one person after another and building on the intelligence with each call to elicit more specific information from each new person called. Finn had used this technique to learn the central location in the United States of the vaccine for a nasty bioterrorism bug by pretending to be a marketing student doing a term paper on commercial distribution techniques. He talked to eight different people, finishing with a vice president of the company that manufactured the vaccine, who unknowingly confirmed the location while answering what he obviously thought was a totally unrelated series of questions.

Today Finn was gathering info on two upcoming projects: the hit on the Capitol and a far more involved crashing of the Pentagon. While it had been unfortunately proved beyond doubt that one could fly a large plane into the headquarters of the U.S. military and damage it, there were far subtler ways of breaching the facility’s security and perhaps doing more harm than the doomed jumbo jet had. Among other possible scenarios, one could booby-trap the military’s command and control system, or sabotage its air filtration system, killing or sickening tens of thousands of key government personnel, or even blow up the building from the inside out.

As Finn went about his work, he kept an eye on the Internet for news of Carter Gray’s death. As expected, the authorities were keeping a tight lid on all of it. There had been no leaks and most stories were confined to telling and retelling the glorious career and public service of the dead man, Carter Robert Gray. Finally, Finn couldn’t take it anymore. He went for a walk.

And then he decided, on impulse, to visit his mother. He would catch a flight that very night, after the kids were in bed. He could see her the next day and be back home that same night. After the navy gig, he had some downtime coming anyway. His was not a nine-to-five occupation. And with several jobs percolating in the prep stage before the field operations would begin, now was actually a good time to go.

He both loved and hated to see his mother. The routine never varied; it couldn’t, actually. Yet since it had all begun with her, Finn had to return to that touchstone from time to time. It wasn’t like he was reporting in, but in a way that’s exactly what he was doing.

He booked the flight online and called Mandy and told her. He left work early, drove his two youngest to swimming and baseball practice respectively, and then picked them up later. After they were asleep he left for the airport, for the short ride to one of the longest days of his life.