Tom Clancy Support and Defend

23

The more Dom mentally retraced his own steps over the past half-hour, the more he convinced himself he’d played his surveillance correctly so far. He’d not followed Ross up the obvious choke point of the mezzanine stairs, he’d let the man come to him in the mall instead of just walking behind him. If Dom had been pinged by the opposition, whoever and wherever they were, then he was certain he’d just been pegged for closer scrutiny as one of many potential tails. He was sure he hadn’t tipped his hand definitively that he was a surveillant.

Ross walked out of the clothing store now — again, he hadn’t bought a thing — and he headed back to the staircase, this time descending to the food court in the basement.

Caruso’s first inclination was to back off, to get the hell out of Union Station before Ross’s fairy godmother, somewhere close by with eyes on right now, tipped him off that he was being followed by a guy in a black biker jacket. But as he started to walk, Dom decided his best move was to make it obvious he wasn’t a tail by blowing his coverage on purpose. So he walked to the staircase, caught up with Ross, and then passed him going down, nearly brushing against him as he descended. It was such an overt move that, Dom determined, he would be discounted as a potential watcher by anyone who saw him.

In the food court, Dom got in line at a gyro stand. For nearly three minutes he willed himself to look straight ahead, hoping that anyone suspicious of him was watching him the entire time, noting his complete disinterest in anything other than his lunch. He ordered a lamb kabob and a Coke and paid for them, then waited while his order was prepared. All the while he looked ahead at the gyro stand or down at his phone. Only when he had his food in hand and found a plastic chair and a little table by the center staircase did he glance up and out at the big room.

It was just a quick peek, and then he looked back down to his lunch, but Dom had been trained to use a single glance to take a still picture of his surroundings with the camera in his brain. As he began eating, he processed the photo he just took. There were the fifty or so tables in front of him, the food stalls going down the right-hand side, the hallway to the restrooms on the left, and there, facing away and heading toward the restrooms, was Ethan Ross.

Dom looked up again as he took a sip of his Coke, keeping his gaze relaxed and natural. Ethan disappeared down the hall to the men’s room. There was no way Dom would follow him, even if he didn’t suspect Ross had a spotter somewhere in this room watching his back. The hallway was another choke point the spotter would send Ross down to ID an overzealous tail.

Nope, Dom decided he’d let his target piss on his own.

Caruso ate another bite of food, but stopped chewing suddenly when he saw something curious in front of him. A man in his thirties and wearing a charcoal-gray suit and an overcoat walked toward the bathroom hall to the men’s room. There was nothing particularly interesting in that, but Dom noticed the man exchange a quick but unmistakable look with two young men sitting at a table eating pizza. On second glance, Dom realized these were the two college-aged men in the tracksuits he’d seen behind Ross heading up to the mezzanine ten minutes earlier.

Charcoal-suit man didn’t look like he was with the college boys, they certainly hadn’t been together earlier, but the glance was one of insecurity. Concern.

To Dom the look said, “Should I follow him in?”

After the look the man did, in fact, head down the hallway to the bathroom.

Dom had been on the passive lookout for Ross’s spotter, but he knew these guys weren’t working with Ross. The glance said something else.

They weren’t Ross’s fairy godmothers.

This was a tail.

Dom corrected himself. This was another tail. This had to be the FBI conducting surveillance on Ross, and this infuriated Caruso. He wanted to punch his fist into the wall next to him, but he fought the urge. He knew good and well that Ross’s spotter would have seen the man he’d funneled into the choke point, and this meant Ross would now spook and go to ground, making proving anything against him much more difficult.

Dom took out his phone and dialed a number he’d saved in the memory. After a few rings, a man answered.

“Albright.”

Caruso whispered, though there was no one around. “Damn it, Darren, your boys are fucking up.”

“My… boys? What boys?”

“Listen to me. The tail on Ross has got to pull back. He’s running an SDR, but he’s got a spotter. Your team is trying to stick too close to him. Shit, I’m ninety percent sure it’s already too late. One of them just got dragged through a choke point.”

“Where are you?”

Dom sighed. “I’m at Union Station. The food court.”

“You are following Ethan Ross?”

“A hell of a lot better than your team is following him.”

“I told you before, you are to stay out of the investigation. And you agreed to that. On top of that, he’s not even a subject of inquiry.”

“If he’s not a subject of inquiry why do you have a tail on—”

“We don’t have a tail on him!”

Dom watched the two young men at the table as they stood and headed for the stairs, drifting through the light crowd. Dom expected they would go up and find a static watch location for when Ross ascended.

Dom asked, “Then who the hell are these guys?”

Albright did not respond to the question. Instead, he said, “I want you to go home. I’ll come over later and talk to you about this.”

“This tail on him isn’t FBI? You’re one hundred percent certain?”

“I am disinclined to discuss any part of the investigation with you at this point, since you obviously haven’t held up your end of our bargain. But just so you will back off and not harass any civilians who are presumed innocent, I can positively confirm, on my mother’s grave, that I do not have any surveillance package of any kind on NSC staffer Ethan Ross.”

“What are you going to do about these guys?”

“I suggest you contact the NSC. If there is a security issue involving one of their employees, they need to take care of it.” Albright hung up the phone.

Dom rolled his eyes. Clearly, Albright didn’t believe Caruso’s concerns were valid.

The two young men were out of sight now, but Dom thought about their appearance. They both had dark hair and somewhat olive complexions, but they could have been from just about anywhere save Scandinavia. The man in the charcoal suit had salt-and-pepper hair and lighter skin, although he wasn’t exactly fair, either.

There were really no definitive conclusions he could draw about them from their appearance.

Ross appeared from the bathroom hallway, and Dominic looked down at his food. When he looked up again, thirty seconds later, Ross was gone. He’d apparently ascended the other staircase, on the far side of the basement from where Dom now sat.

Dom did not go after him. There was already too much going on around here for his taste, so he decided he’d just finish his lunch and go home.

He took a bite of the gyro, but realized he’d lost his appetite. Thinking about Ross, the fact he had confederates, the fact he now knew he was under suspicion and he would now act in a way that might well make him safer for it, churned Dominic’s stomach. He stood and dumped his leftovers in a nearby garbage can, then headed toward the stairs closest to him.

Just in front of him a thick-set older man in a camel-wool coat turned to take the stairs, and Dom had to slow to let him pass.

Dom had just taken his first step up when he looked above him, past the older man, and he noticed a pair of uniformed D.C. metro police officers descending. One spoke into the microphone attached to his epaulet, and both men moved purposefully, as if they were being dispatched downstairs on a mission.

Almost instinctively, Dom turned around and began walking away from the stairs.

He knew instantly that Darren Albright had called the local police.

Not to grab Ross. Not to grab the guy spotting for Ross. Not to grab the men following Ross.

But to grab Caruso.

“Fucking Albright,” he mumbled to himself.

He walked past the hallway to the restrooms on his left and he continued to the stairs at the west end of the basement. Just before he reached them he turned away quickly and pretended to use an ATM on his right, keeping his back to the stairs.

Two more Metro PD came down the west staircase and passed him unaware. After they moved on into the room, Dom spun away and shot up the stairs, then out of Union Station.

Just as Dom had suspected, Ethan Ross’s fairy godmother had spotted the men on his tail. Harlan Banfield had sat in the food court, at a bench alongside a creperie ahead of Caruso but out of his view on the other side of a support column.

The moment he saw the men, Banfield ID’d them as FBI. This was confirmation bias. Ross thought the Feds were on to him, someone was, in fact, onto him, so Banfield presumed it was the Feds.

He was in constant communication with Ethan, but he did not tell him he was being followed. Instead, Banfield told Ethan to begin walking back to his car in Chinatown, and he would tell him what to do next. Once Ethan was out of the bathroom and taking the stairs out of the basement, Harlan headed to the staircase closest to him, rushed past a young man in a motorcycle jacket, and climbed up. A pair of D.C. police were heading down, but Banfield didn’t pay any attention to them, he was already thinking about what to do next with Ethan Ross.

As he headed back to his motorcycle in Chinatown, Dom fished through his pocket and pulled out the card the Mossad officer gave him the previous morning. He dialed the number, and David answered on the first ring.

“Mr. Caruso, so good of you to call. How can I be of service?”

“Do you have surveillance on someone here in D.C.?”

David chuckled. “That is a vague question. Of course we have someone under surveillance. Syrian diplomats. Palestinian radicals. Egyptian military attachés. Your capital city is a surprisingly hostile environment. I presume, however, you are referring to someone specific?”

“Someone who might have been involved in the NSA breach.”

David answered unequivocally. “Absolutely not. As I told you, we are hoping you might help us with that. We have other feelers out, of course, but so far nothing solid. If you are telling me you already have a suspect, I will be most impressed.”

“Well I do have a suspect, and he’s got a tail.”

“FBI?”

“The FBI says no.”

“That’s interesting. Some other actor is following him?”

“It appears so.”

“What is this man’s name? I’ll look into it on my end.” Dom hesitated. No, he wasn’t ready to get the Mossad involved in this. They were just one more moving part to a situation that was quickly becoming extremely complicated. Dom decided it was better he kept them at arm’s reach — for now, anyway. “It’s just a hunch. I’ll let you know if I find out anything more.”

“If you say this man is under surveillance, then that makes him more than a hunch. Involve us, Dominic, and we can use our resources to vet him.”

“I’ll call you back.” Dom hung up the phone and kept walking. David was right, Ethan Ross was more than a hunch. But for now, all Dominic could do was try to think of a way to convince Special Agent Albright of this fact.