The Vatican Knights

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Just as Deputy Director George Pappandopolous made his way to the monitoring room, where a guard sat watching a bank of security screens, Shari Cohen was getting into her Lexus. The screens depicted every hallway and door leading in and out of the JEH Building, including every entrance in and out of the garage. After dismissing the guard for a ten-minute break, Pappandopolous searched the monitors observing the garage area until he spied Shari’s car. As she pulled away, Pappandopolous dialed a single digit on his cell phone, waited, then spoke as if his call was expected. “Cohen’s leaving the building.”

“Yeah. So?” Judas sounded apathetic.

“So I want you to keep an eye on her,” he returned sharply. “She’ll be driving a white Lexus through the northwest gate. Do… not… lose her.”

“Why? What’s up?”

“Paxton thinks that Cohen suspects something, which may prompt her to dig into places where she doesn’t belong.”

There was silence on the other end.

“If she does,” added Pappandopolous, “you know what to do. But for now just keep an eye on her. Paxton thinks she’s heading for DHS.”

“What for?”

“More information,” he said. “Paxton mentioned that she’s in possession of an encrypted CD sent by a CIA leak in Mossad. The DHS has the capability to decode those messages, and she has unrestricted access to their decoding terminal.”

Pappandopolous could hear an audible sigh from Judas’ end. “This is already turning into a cluster.”

“That’s because we planned for Paxton to take the helm, not Cohen.”

After listening for a moment longer, Pappandopolous grunted his approval of something Judas had said and hung up.

Shari laid the files and the burned CD on the passenger seat of her car. After leaving the garage she checked her appearance in the rearview mirror and noticed the half moons forming beneath her eyes.

Behind her a blue sedan followed but stayed a fair distance behind.

Getting into the vault without detection would not be an easy task. There were cameras with facial recognition software, and individualized access codes were required to record employees’ times of entry. Since there was no way to bypass the system, Paxton could only acquire the backup disc by following protocol and hoping not to raise suspicion.

After typing in his PIN, the door opened and Paxton entered the vault, a massive chamber bearing thousands of CDs. From the tiled ceiling, fluorescent lights bathed the room. From every corner of the vault, cameras spied on him, their software deciphering the landmarks of his face.

There was no doubt in his mind that the security tapes would be examined if it was established that the backup file was missing. But with any luck, it would take weeks before the missing disc would be discovered. By then, he would be gone, living in Rio de Janeiro with his ill-gotten commission of seven million dollars.

Earlier he had checked the chain of custody log, noted the number associated with the burned disc, created a bogus label, and attached it to a blank disc. Now, the difficulty would be locating the proper disc in a library of CDs numbering in the tens of thousands. Inspecting the bogus label, he looked for a shelf that contained CDs bearing the proper range of numbers. After a moment, he found what he was looking for. He traced his finger along the CDs until he found the backup disc. He held it next to the bogus one. They were an exact match. Then, placing the bogus disc into the slot, he slid the original into the pocket of his sports jacket.

Refusing to look into the cameras, Paxton exited the vault. He could feel his heart racing, the sweat of his brow beading. He was sure that somebody would inquire what he had hidden in his pocket. But nobody did. After all, he did have clearance to enter the vault. It was simply his own paranoia attacking his nerves.

After removing the disc from his jacket, he looked about the cubicles and aisles. Sensing that no one was suspect, he fed the backup disc to the shredder, the whirring of its grinders much louder than he would have liked.