The Lance

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The safe house sat back from the road on ten acres of rolling Virginia countryside, shielded by a spread of giant oaks planted fifty years before the first shots fired in the Civil War.

The house was a classic ante-bellum southern home, two stories of weathered brick with a slate roof, paned windows and a wide chimney rising at each end. A railed gallery painted white ran along the second story and formed a columned porch along the front of the house. The gallery looked out over fields where Bobby Lee's boys in butternut and gray had passed in a vanished time. A low wall of fieldstone marked the boundaries of the property. Signs warned trespassers away.

The trees and landscaping hid cameras and sensors. It would take a rocket propelled grenade to get through the innocent looking front door. The windows were authentic in style, but they were made of bullet proof glass.

Elizabeth believed that a safe house needed to be safe. There was even an emergency escape tunnel. Maybe it was overkill, but it was satisfying to anyone with reason to be cautious or paranoid.

Elizabeth's paranoia was in full bloom.

Stephanie had hacked into NSA and was probing for anything to hint at what was going on in Dysart's mind. The security monitors on the wall above her in the darkened room showed nothing except serene countryside straight from a realtor's dream book. The ground alarms were active and silent.

Ronnie and Selena were in the kitchen cooking up spaghetti and meatballs. Except for the weapons on the kitchen table it could have passed for a normal dinner hour in America.

Elizabeth's white silk blouse was limp, stained with dark rings under her armpits. She wrinkled her nose at the sour smell of her own stress. Stephanie's fingers moved across the keyboard, entering a steady stream of commands.

Elizabeth began coughing, trying to catch her breath. Sharp pain spread through her chest. Not now!

"Are you all right, Director?"

"Yes." She coughed. "Excuse me. I'll be right back."

She got to her feet and went into the bathroom and closed the door. Coughing, she reached into her purse for a small black case. She opened it and took out a syringe and glass vial. She fitted a needle, punched through the rubber seal on the bottle and drew 5cc of clear liquid into the syringe. Her fine, thin boned hands trembled. She pushed air out of the syringe, sat on the toilet, exposed her thigh and injected the liquid.

She waited for the symptoms to pass. In a moment, she began to feel better. She found the inhaler in her purse and took a deep breath into her lungs.

The doctors had said the attacks would come more often, but she hadn't expected it so soon. She looked in the mirror, at the dark shadows under her eyes. She flushed the unused toilet, patted water on her face and went back to the computer room.

"What have you got, Steph?"

Lines of code streamed across the monitor. Stephanie's fingers flew over the keyboard. "I'm into the main servers and past the firewalls. Now I'm after Dysart's emails. He's got sophisticated encryption, something I haven't seen before, but I think I'm close."

"Will anyone know if you get in?"

"Yes. But they won't know who did it or where it came from. I won't have much time once I crack it, but I'll download everything as fast as possible. We should get most of it before the system shuts me out."

The screen cleared and a list of files appeared.

"I'm in!"

Stephanie tapped a key. A window appeared with a moving bar marking progress of the download. Elizabeth watched. Ten per cent downloaded. Fifteen. Twenty-five. She realized she was holding her breath, exhaled. Fifty-six per cent. Seventy. Seventy-eight. Ninety-three. The screen went blank. Stephanie tapped a key, disconnected.

"We got almost all of it. Right now they're going nuts over at Fort Meade, but there's no way they can trace it back here. It will look like someone in Uzbekistan was playing games."

Ronnie called from the kitchen. "Chow's up! Come eat."

Elizabeth's stomach growled. Dysart's files could wait another ten minutes. As she sat down her phone signaled a call from Nick. She turned on the speaker.

"Director, what the hell's going on?"

"General Dysart took over NSA this morning. He knew you were in Jerusalem and wanted me to recall you. He's not supposed to know you're there. Nobody is. Then someone bugged our vehicles, high tech. Our security is compromised. I don't know what's happening, but it smells rotten. We're all at the safe house."

"Someone came after me again. Twice. The first time it was a couple posing as tourists. They're dead. Then someone tried when I went to my hotel room. He's dead too, but he got one of Shin Bet's agents. She's in bad shape."

She? In his hotel room? Who was Nick hanging out with? Selena felt flushed, then guilty. Someone tried to kill him and you're jealous. What's the matter with you?

"Are you all right?" Harker said.

"Yes."

"Nick, I think Dysart is setting up the President. Maybe an assassination."

"The Director of NSA? Are you serious?" Nick's voice faded in and out. It sounded like someone talking from the bottom of a well filled with electronic gargling, but Selena could hear the shock in his voice.

"Yes."

"Can you prove it?"

"Not yet, but my gut tells me I'm right. I want you to get close to Rice. I'll call him and set it up."

Elizabeth looked at her spaghetti cooling on the table. Ronnie wasn't waiting. He twirled pasta on his plate with his fork while he listened to the conversation.

"Arslanian had a flash drive in his hand when he was killed," Nick said. "I'm going to upload it to you now."

Elizabeth watched the download progress on her phone until it was done.

"Got it."

"Director, I'm blown. I should get out of here."

"Rice needs you there. Tell him there may be a plot to assassinate him and that I'm working on proving it."

"I don't like it." He paused. "When will you call Rice?"

"Now. As soon as this conversation is over."

"Then I'm gone." Nick broke the connection.