Undercover with the Hottie (Investigating the Hottie) Read online

  He bristled with indignation. “I have done no such thing. I have never worked for them as far as I know. And if I had, there would be no complaints about my work.”

  She was provoking him on purpose, and she was enjoying it.

  “Who else has been unhappy with your work?” she asked.

  He didn't answer. He stared her down, his jaw trembling.

  Nic pushed a pen and a piece of paper over to the man. “Write down the names of any enemies you have and we'll check into it.”

  “My enemies are not my former employers. My enemies consist solely of the friends and families of the people I have been paid to target. I am not an idiot. I will not implicate myself as you desire.”

  Nic grinned. “And yet, the Avaritia Militia has set you up? Have you assassinated someone important to the AM? Perhaps kidnapped someone that the AM holds dear?”

  The man growled, “I have not.”

  “You realize that you are involved in a terrorist operation on American soil. Targeting the UN Secretary-General has earned you the dubious honor of being handled under the Patriot Act. You'd be halfway to Guantanamo Bay by now if you weren't cooperating.” Nic paused. “Might I suggest that you continue to prove that keeping you here is in our best interests?”

  Then he and Christie rose and left the room without so much as a glance back at the prisoner.

  “I'm glad they're on our side,” Will said.

  “That was nothing,” Grandma told us. “I once saw them talk a man into sawing off his own arm. If they hadn't stopped him, he'd have done it.” She made a sawing gesture.

  I frowned. I didn't want to know any more about that case.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Nic and Christie came into the room with us. I had to admit that Christie had color in her cheeks and the fire back in her eyes. Maybe she was okay.

  “What did you think?” she asked. “He's a slimeball, huh.”

  “He's offended that the AM doesn't respect him,” I said. “What a freak.”

  “He is, isn't he?” Nic's eyes gleamed with humor.

  “Do you think he knows more than he's told you?” Will asked.

  “Gut feeling?” Christie asked. “No.”

  Nic nodded. “I agree, but he's still here, and there's always a chance we'll get something more.”

  “What's next?” I asked.

  Nic frowned. “We're trying to get in to question Simon Bankwell, but they have another team on him. So far, we haven't had any luck.”

  Christie took my hands and pulled me up. “Can you guys go back to the phone calls? They need a lot of help with those.”

  Now I stood eye to eye with her. “Yeah. We can.”

  “If we can't get access to Bankwell, we'll leave around six and grab dinner.” She stepped back so Will and Grandma could stand too. “We can take some work back to the loft for all of us.”

  “What are they going to do about the Secretary-General tomorrow night? Are they going to let him go to Times Square?” Will asked.

  “We can't actually make him stay away, but right now, GASI is leaning towards giving him the all clear.” Nic grimaced. “I'd rather he not go.”

  “We have a meeting at ten in the morning to make the final call.” Christie turned to Nic. “Unfortunately, our voices aren't the loudest at this point.”

  Grandma scowled. “She means they aren't listening to us.”

  “That's a mistake,” Will said.

  He had that right. GASI should listen to them.

  At seven, we headed out. They hadn't made any progress with their plea to speak with Bankwell. Instead, they were assured they'd have the chance the next morning.

  “They're putting us off,” Christie grumbled after we'd piled into the Town Car.

  “We have plenty of Italian food left,” Grandma said. “I don't mind a rerun of that if you don't.”

  “Good idea,” Christie said. “I wasn't able to do my usual damage last night.”

  “Thus the leftovers,” Nic said with a grin.

  Christie reached over the seat and punched him in the arm.

  I couldn't stop smiling. They were back to teasing, and that could only be a good sign.

  The Italian food was every bit as good rewarmed, but the rest of the night was uneventful. We didn't learn anything from Headquarters about our case. The drug tip had paid off though, and they were finding other interesting things in the surveillance from the chargers, so we needed to tell Leah, Logan, and Sidney.

  “When we wake up in the morning, it will be New Year's Eve,” Christie said as we went up the stairs.

  “I hope GASI finds enough to assure us that the Secretary-General is safe,” I said.

  “Or more likely, enough to convince them that he isn't, so he'll cancel,” she said.

  “Either way,” I said.

  “Either way,” she agreed.

  I woke at six. I wasn't sure why other than the fact that none of us were convinced the Secretary-General would be safe.

  Grandma sat downstairs at the kitchen table. She had brewed the coffee already. She was showered, dressed, and raring to go. “Good morning, Sunshine! You're up early.”

  “I'm worried about tonight,” I admitted.

  “We all are,” she said. “They want to debrief Nic this morning, which means he'll miss the meeting to make a decision about the Secretary-General's safety. Christie and I need a third voice there.”

  “Does the AM even have a motive for killing the Secretary-General? I mean, seriously, they benefit from keeping the UN here in the US and from maintaining the status quo. It doesn't make sense.”

  “Agreed. What else you got?”

  “The woman. She's a loose end that I'm not comfortable with. Who is she and where did she go? She probably set up the mercenary, but if so, why?”

  “Got that in my talking points. Next?”

  “Why was the cell phone in the room? Why didn't the AM cover their tracks?”

  “We need to get Nic and Christie in to see Bankwell.”

  “They'll let them today, right?”

  Grandma winked. “If they don't, I'll take matters into my own hands.”

  “You aren't going to hurt anybody, are you?”

  “No, of course not, but my hacking muscles need some flexing, and I'm not above messing with the schedule to give them time with Bankwell.”

  “Is it that easy?” I asked.

  “It's always that easy.” She grinned like the mischievous grandma she was.

  “How long are you giving GASI to do the right thing?”

  She shrugged. “Not much time. What did you think about the body armor? It's the latest technology.”

  “It's crazy. I don't know how it works, but it's comfortable.”

  Grandma stood up. “I want to show you what GASI had made for me. It really packs a punch.” She went to her room and I followed.

  She pointed to an ordinary-looking black glove on the bed. She picked it up and pulled it on to her right hand. Then she picked up a pillow and set it on top of the armoire. “The pillow will absorb some of the force, but you'll get the idea.” Then she thrust her arm toward the pillow, palm open and facing out. The pillow flew back against the wall as if she'd punched it.

  “What is that?”

  “A low impact device for my old lady bones and joints. I can pack a punch equivalent to any kick from Nic or Christie. The only problem is the two second delay before it can be used again.” She smiled at me. “They're working on that now.”

  “Everybody should have one of those,” I said.

  “It takes a while to adapt,” she admitted, “but I can kick some serious butt with it.”

  “Has Will seen it?”

  “Oh, yeah,” she admitted with a guilty grimace. “Several times.”

  I'd have to remember to ask Will about that later.

  By eight, we were hard at work at our stations in Headquarters. Nic had asked Will and me to go through the night's updates and make sure that everythin
g meshed with what we knew so far. For the first time, we were really involved. What we were doing was important. We were doing what Nic, Grandma, and Christie did instead of busywork. We were investigating.

  An update came across the screen. I turned to Will. “Holy cow. Did you see this?”

  “Bankwell admitted to planning the attack on the Secretary-General. I didn't see that coming,” he said.

  “Bankwell claims the sniper was a fake. They were trying to alert the US government to a plot they had uncovered against the UN Secretary-General and the President!”

  The President. This had gotten really serious, really fast.

  “Why didn't he admit all that yesterday?” I asked Will. “Why now?”

  He clicked his mouse. “That's all they said. What else is happening?”

  Grandma and Christie came hustling out of a hallway and pulled up chairs. “What's your take?” Christie asked us.

  “Makes more sense than the story from yesterday,” I said.

  “Agreed,” Will said.

  “We agree too. We're going to corner Bankwell during the next break. Grandma has set everything up to change the schedule to show that we are authorized to question him. We need you two to take turns stretching your legs so we know when they leave him alone.”

  “We can do that,” Will said. “Where do they have him?”

  Grandma rolled her chair up to my computer. “Here, I'll show you on the floor plan.”

  Will and I took turns searching for restrooms, getting soft drinks from the break room, and being too stupid to remember where the halls led for the next two hours. Finally, we caught a break.

  Within minutes, Christie and Nic were inside the interrogation room with Bankwell.

  Grandma, Will, and I were watching, but we had instructions to get out of there if Jobson busted them for unauthorized access to the prisoner.

  They strode into the room and came clean with the polished billionaire.

  Christie said, “We don't have permission to be here, but we think your story from this morning makes a lot of sense. If the Secretary-General and the President are in danger tonight, we want to intervene. Start talking.”

  My first impression of the man was that he was so polished as to be almost shiny. His perfect skin, perfect hair, even his manicured nails screamed money.

  When he opened his mouth to speak, his deep voice was cultured. “I am grateful for your attention to this matter. On December 21st at ten in the morning, my team identified a threat against the UN Secretary-General, the President of the United States, and the German Chancellor. The intel came from our unauthorized surveillance of several rooms in the UN. We immediately discussed handing over the intel as a course of action. We made a decision to bring the United States government into play without disclosing our surveillance. We planned to give the appearance of an attack on the Secretary-General, thus alerting the US. We expected the US government to ferret out those behind the threat and neutralize it.

  “The attempt went very wrong, as you know, and the sniper we hired to give the appearance of an assassination attempt was killed. We believe that the people behind the original plot found out about our plan and decimated it by killing the sniper. We have a tremendous amount of resources at our disposal. While you and other US agencies worked the intel from your direction, we expended our energy chasing down the people behind the threat.” He sighed. “We did not succeed. We have little more than the original recordings which detail the plot against the world leaders. We identified a few more recordings with vague references. We have the voice of at least one of the UN insiders but have not managed to identify him. We are at a dead end. We need to bring our audio here and enlist your help in tracking these people down.”

  “You should have told us yesterday,” Nic said.

  “I agree,” he said. “I did not have the authority of the board to disclose the information.”

  “They agreed to share with us today?” Nic asked.

  “No.” He steepled his fingers. “I made the call myself. I won't stand by and let this tragedy happen.”

  “We need the audio.”

  “I can have it transmitted, but it will take more than a few minutes. I'm talking about a large file. I have offered repeatedly, but your agents have poo-pooed my offers.”

  I couldn't help but smile at his use of poo poo.

  Nic pulled out a cell phone. “Make it happen and fast.”

  “I'll have my attorney arrange the transmission.”

  “What else do we need to know?” Christie asked.

  Bankwell dialed the number and held the phone to his ear. “My security team has picked up chatter about a suicide bomber, a missile, and the Empire State Building. I don't know for certain that the chatter is related to tonight's attempt on the world leaders. But I wouldn't overlook those leads.”

  “What about the driver?” Nic asked.

  He shook his head. “We haven't got anything. We were starting to think it was a robbery.”

  A very angry Section Chief busted into the room. “What is going on here?”

  Bankwell was talking on the phone and he appeared to complete the call before putting down the phone.

  “We don't have time for them to get yelled at,” I said to Grandma. “They've got to get to work on that intel.”

  “That's our job,” she said. “Let's get going.”

  Will jumped up and led the way back to our station.

  “You two reprogram the scanning program to search for Empire State Building, missile, UN, suicide bomber, Times Square. Match them with the words from profile two and search in the top ten languages. I'll contact Bankwell's attorney and make sure I get the transmission.” She logged onto the computer next to us.

  Will and I worked together. He typed in the changes she'd specified, and I worked as a second set of eyes. When we got the parameters set, we started scanning for hits.

  Grandma already had part of the audio. “I'm bringing in Mathews' and Choo's teams for backup on this. We need more ears to the ground.”

  We had over a hundred hits and were working our way through them. So far, it didn't sound like much, but we forwarded them to Mathews' team anyway for transcription of the calls.

  Grandma pulled us off our task for a few minutes. “Listen to this.”

  It sounded like somebody was walking by the room with the bug. They stopped, possibly in the doorway. The audio cut in and out. I'd hoped for something much better. “gesture...confetti...President...”

  The second voice said, “...over ten million viewers... one million on site...”

  “You have my word,” the first voice said. “This will go as planned. We shall turn the gesture of peace into a show of our strength by making the President, the Secretary-General, and the German Chancellor disappear.”

  The second voice returned. “I know you will.”

  They kept talking but the voices receded as they walked away from the hall. Grandma pushed the stop button.

  Grandma, Will, and I shared a moment of horrified silence.

  “How do we know this is authentic?” I asked.

  “We'll send the recording to our audio team, but guys, I don't see any motive for the AM to mislead us about a danger to our world leaders. If they were trying to divert our attention from another attack, maybe... but I don't see it. I think this is a legitimate threat.”

  “So what's first? Authenticating it or finding the two men who were speaking?”

  “Both,” she said. “I'm going to pull in an additional team and then I'm going to take this to Jobson.”

  “What should we do?”

  “I'll have team five work on your scanning. You two can go up to the fifth floor and work with the audio team on identifying the voices. As soon as I spring Nic and Christie from time out, we'll join you.”

  We logged off our computers and ran for the elevators.

  We didn't have a lot of time. I glanced at Will. “It's already one o'clock.”

  �
�Then we work twice as fast.”

  Three hours later, we hadn't managed to identify either of the voices. We had a car pick up Leah, Logan, and Sidney and bring them down. They listened, eager to help, but didn't recognize either of them.

  It was a fluke that Section Chief Jobson walked in while they were there. He'd been coordinating the efforts and making calls for clearances, and he hadn't listened to the audio yet. He stopped when he cleared the door.

  “Is that the audio?” he asked.

  I flinched, worried that he'd yell about our friends being there.

  “I know that voice,” he said. “The man being reassured. I've heard that before.”

  “This was recorded at the UN in late December,” Nic said.

  “The party planner, Edith Montgomery. It's her husband's voice. I met him at the UN holiday party and again at ours.”

  Nic jumped up. “We need to take him into custody.”

  Jobson shook his head. “They were killed by a drunk driver on Christmas Eve.”

  The mood in the room went from elated to stunned.

  Nic sat back down. “So that lead is no good.”

  “And we need to check out that accident,” Grandma said.

  “The priority is identifying the other man. I'll contact the President's advisors and let them know about the threat,” Jobson said. “Work fast.”

  Logan and his sisters made a sandwich run for us before we had the car take them home. Grandma told them to stay home since we didn't know the full scope of this mess yet. They were going to go ahead with their party.

  We told them that we'd try to join them. At some point, we either stopped the assassination or we failed.

  The five of us were among over a hundred analysts combing through the phone calls made by everyone we'd bugged in our massive efforts since the day after Christmas. We hadn't identified the voice by watching any UN press conferences or training videos. We hadn't gone public with the voice or called in anybody from the UN yet because we weren't sure who to trust. We would have contacted the Secretary-General directly but we couldn't get in touch with him.