The Destroyed

CHAPTER 25

WASHINGTON, DC

Peter was finally alone. Olsen had just left, claiming a dinner meeting. He didn’t say who he was seeing, but Peter was sure it had to be Mygatt and Green.

“Inform me the minute anything happens,” Olsen had said on his way out the door.

“Of course,” Peter had lied.

“When you find her this time, make sure your men have her. I don’t want any more fuckups.”

Peter had yet to decide when he should tell Olsen that Mila had already been detained. There was a growing part of him that was wondering if he should at all. What he needed to do was make a rational decision based on facts he didn’t currently have.

Once Olsen was out of the flat, Peter joined Misty at her desk, and leaned over her shoulder as she brought up the security system. They could monitor the whole street via over a dozen cameras, including one directed at the nearby parking lot where Olsen always left his car.

Right on cue, Olsen stepped out of the building, walked down to the lot, and drove off in his shiny BMW 535i.

Peter leaned back. “Keep an eye on him. I’ll be upstairs.”

With a nod, Misty activated the software that would track Olsen’s movements by way of a tiny chip she had sewn into the lining of his coat while he was in the office with Peter. There was also a second chip affixed to the undercarriage of the BMW. And if those weren’t enough, three freelancers Peter trusted were doing a rotating tail so that there were actual eyes on Olsen at all times.

Peter climbed the secret staircase to the hidden apartment. Misty referred to the three-sided desk in the middle of the main room as mission control. On each side was a different computer. The one on the right was tied to the network downstairs and mirrored a machine in one of the unused offices, so if someone did a search, they wouldn’t realize the computer was actually in a different room. It could access any of the other machines in the flat without the need of a password. Unfortunately, that didn’t cover Olsen’s private laptop since he’d taken it with him when he left. That was probably for the best, anyway. Peter would have been tempted to try to hack in, something that could have triggered an alarm alerting Olsen.

The other two computers were not linked to those below. In fact, neither was using the same Internet access as the rest of the office. Each was hardwired to a different, neighboring building.

One was used for accessing the public Internet, or the occasional hack into something a bit more private. The other had backdoor access to several divisions within the US intelligence community-not full access, but close enough.

This last was the computer Peter woke from its slumber.

When Mila Voss showed up alive in Tanzania, Peter had thoroughly gone over the file on her termination. As happened with most projects, many of the finer details were deemed unnecessary to the task at hand and were held back. It was a perfectly logical thing to do. In fact, Peter liked it that way. If he didn’t need the big picture, he didn’t want it. It made it easier to focus on what did need to be done. Mila’s removal was one of those situations. Why she had to die was none of his business.

Not anymore.

Though Mila had worked for him a few times, he’d never had any direct contact. Hiring and briefing her had all been handled by subordinates. Peter had gone back and checked those records, and found that she had done her job, was thoroughly reliable, and had never caused any problems. Of course, he wasn’t her only employer, but given how she had performed for him, he found it hard to believe the experience had been drastically different for anyone else.

Using the special-access computer, he set to work attempting to create a chronological list of jobs Mila had done. He knew there would be holes, people she might have worked for who were not official US agencies, but those gigs didn’t concern him. The order to terminate had come from Mygatt through Green. They were both with the government at the time, so the project that had caused the problem had probably also come through government channels.

Peter spent two hours sifting through the digital records before Misty called and asked if he wanted her to pick him up some dinner.

“A sandwich,” he said. “And put on some coffee.”

“Coffee’s ready whenever you are.”

Just after nine p.m., he had what he considered to be as close as possible to a complete list of Mila’s projects in the four months prior to her termination order. Whatever she did that had made Mygatt think her death was necessary would most likely have occurred not long before the scheduled event in Las Vegas. He thought it was pretty damn likely it had happened no more than eight weeks out.

He printed the list so he could lay it across the desk and get a clearer picture. Using markers, he highlighted those jobs on which there was an intersection between Mila and either Mygatt or Green. He then looked through these to see if something stood out, but on the surface there was nothing. Next, he concentrated on the jobs the two men were not-openly, at least-involved in. Same results.

Dammit.

He leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. What was he missing? The room grew deathly still as his mind ran through every possibility. A full ten minutes passed before he rocked forward, thinking there was another angle he could check.

Using date, time, and location information from the jobs Mila had worked, he began his new search. The list he came up with was shorter than the one he already had, but he’d expected that. It was simply a list of projects that coincided both in time and relative location to those Mila was attached to. Other than that, there were no apparent connections between the jobs.

He checked each against her corresponding project. The first was in Chicago at roughly the same time of day, but on a different side of the city so contact between the two was unlikely. The next was in DC. For a few moments, he thought that might be it, but it was soon clear, once again, there had been no overlap. The same was true of a job in Boston, and two in New York.

The sixth had been in Atlanta. Actually, he corrected himself, it had started in Atlanta for Mila. This time there was an overlap-a flight between a small airport outside the city and Lisbon, Portugal. Mila was on the flight because of its convenience for the run she was on. The other project had been using the flight to get to Europe, too, though there was no info telling Peter what they’d been up to. He didn’t recognize the names of the people who were ultimately in charge of the project-neither Mygatt nor Green was mentioned-but there were four things that did stand out.

One, the flight had happened exactly one month before Mila was supposedly eliminated.

Two, the agent in charge of the other project was a man named Evans, the very same man who’d retired to the UK under the name Johnston and been killed just a few days before.

Three, the lead agent on the flight itself had been Lawrence Rosen, whose recent death had been caused by smashing into a Tanzania sidewalk.

And four, Rosen’s partner on the flight had been Scott Olsen.