I was first out of the room and into the truck. The girls were moving slower than normal, but that would soon change. All Leecy needed was food, and Valerie needed a little caffeine. I connected the ignition wires, and the truck roared to life.
“Which way, birthday girl?”
“Make a left out of the parking lot.”
We arrived at the Westin fifteen minutes early, or on time, according to Valerie. I couldn’t ask anyone else to hot-wire the truck, so I drove past the hotel valet stand and away from the hotel for a block, finding a self-parking lot on Williams street.
“Okay, this is as close as we can get,” I said. “Are you guys ready?”
“Ready,” Valerie and Leecy said together. It sounded like music to my ears.
We grabbed our packs and covered the one block distance to the hotel at a leisurely pace. I watched the faces of the people we passed on the sidewalk and none of them paid us any attention. They were all busy with handheld devices just like Val said they would be. The doorman at the hotel was the only person to make eye contact with me, but he showed no signs of recognition. We crossed the lobby to the bank of house phones located near the reception desk. I picked up one of the receivers and pressed 2-2-1-1 on the keypad. The phone rang once, and I heard an unfamiliar female voice.
“We have you on camera. Walk to the elevators and take the next available one. We’ll activate it for you,” the woman instructed and ended the call.
I replaced the receiver. “Follow me, ladies.”
I led the girls across the lobby, finding the elevator bank for the hotel guests. There was an open elevator door waiting for us. The door closed as soon as we were inside. I watched as the number ‘22’ illuminated on the panel of buttons, and we were moving.
“They have us on camera and also took control of the elevators,” I said. “Tammy has embraced the technological age.”
“It’s kind of cool, isn’t it?” Leecy asked.
“Yeah, I guess it is,” I said.
“I’ll reserve judgment till I hear what it is she wants in return for helping us,” Valerie said as the elevator stopped and the doors opened on the 22nd floor.
An attractive, young blonde woman dressed in a black pants suit and bright white shirt with a gold chain around her neck was waiting for us at the elevator doors. Unless CIA regulations had changed, jewelry was forbidden. The reason for the ban was that jewelry is too personal. No field agent would ever wear a necklace, and unless I missed my guess, a small medallion of some sort was dangling from the gold chain around the blonde girl’s neck. Either the regulations had changed since my time with the agency or she wasn’t a field agent.
“Please follow me.”
She led us on a short walk to room 2211, opening the door but not following us inside.
Room 2211 wasn’t a bedroom, but more like a den, and so far, it was empty of anyone but us. Couches, tables and chairs were arranged into several sitting areas, and the connecting doors on each end of the room were cracked. I walked to the windows and saw Centennial Olympic Park, Phillips Arena and the Georgia Dome below.
I turned when I saw the connecting door on my right open. It was Wakefield. She hadn’t changed much – still very slim, her long, blonde hair straight with gray highlights. She was wearing flats, but remained tall at six feet without heels.
“Hello, Ron,” she said as she entered the room, touching a finger to her right ear as she walked toward us. “Hello, Valerie…Leecy…I’m Special Agent Tammy Daniel Wakefield. Please call me Wakefield. It’s nice to finally meet the woman that tore Ron away from active duty with the CIA, and his beautiful daughter,” she said, extending her hand to each of them.
“It’s nice to meet you, too,” Leecy said, and then she asked, “What can you tell me about my dad? I want to know all about his time as an operator with the CIA.”
Valerie offered her hand, saying, “For now, we’d just like to know what it’s going to cost if you help us.”
I could see Wakefield breaking into her familiar smile before she answered my girls’ questions.
“Young lady,” Wakefield addressed Leecy first, “I can only tell you what I’m allowed to talk about, but it’s probably stuff you already know.” Wakefield then said to Valerie, “Direct and to the point. I like that. You live up to the reputation.” And then addressing Valerie and Leecy together, she said, “If you two will allow me, I’ll answer both your questions later. Right now, I’d like to address your current situation by first explaining why I’m here in Atlanta. I’m sure that’s another question you have for me.”
“It is.” Valerie said, as she took a seat on one of the couches.
Leecy joined her mother on the couch, but I remained standing. Wakefield paid me no attention and sat on the couch opposite Valerie and Leecy. She touched her right ear again before going on.
“I’m in Atlanta with a small contingent of agents. There are three tech agents working computers in the room behind me,” she gestured to the door she’d entered through and then pointed at the other connecting door, “and three tactical agents or investigators on standby in the other room. But that doesn’t explain why I’m here. I’m here because of your company, Valerie. I’m here because of INESCO.”
“Why does INESCO merit the attention of the CIA? I thought the CIA was prohibited from conducting missions on US soil,” Valerie asked calmly.
“You know your company’s business. You know what you’re into down there. Whenever the government is involved in a relationship like the one with INESCO, there’s always the possibility of espionage. We’ve picked up some chatter about a pending project your company has undertaken for our government. And given the security protocols put in place by you, your company, and the DOD, no one should be aware the project even exists. But there is chatter, nonetheless. You’re correct; the CIA is prohibited from actively pursuing interests in the US, but in this case, that line has been blurred into non-existence.”
“What do you mean by chatter?” Leecy asked.
Wakefield allowed a slight smile to cross her lips before answering. “I’m sure you all are aware of our ability to collect and disseminate cell phone data, calls and texts, as well as email,” Wakefield said.
“I thought that was the NSA,” Leecy responded.
Wakefield laughed a small, secretive laugh. “The NSA collects metadata that consists of numbers called by one phone and how long each call lasts. We saw this Snowden thing coming. We knew our data collection techniques were about to be exposed. The NSA was chosen to be the fall guy for the rest of the intelligence community collecting data. The NSA makes the news and gets the attention while the rest of us continue doing the very thing, and more, that the NSA is being accused of. After this meeting, you’ll never use a cellphone again.”
Wakefield paused as the door behind her opened on cue. Another agent entered the room, a man about 5’10” tall and 180 pounds, with dark red hair, wearing a dark suit and bright, white shirt.
“This is Senior Field Agent Thomas Moore. He just came over from behavioral analytics. Before that he was part of multi-agency task force working to stop the human trafficking problem around the world. He’s become a vital part of our efforts here in Atlanta, and what he’s giving each of you now is a National Secrecy Agreement. Sorry, but it’s required.”
Agent Moore handed each of us a one-page sheet of paper. He had a slight smile on his face that I hadn’t figured out yet, so I reserved judgment about this guy.
“This agreement says that if any of you divulge to anyone outside of this room what’s discussed here you’ll disappear from the face of the earth. You’ll spend the rest of your days held in a CIA black site, never to see the light of day again. Please sign the documents or this meeting is over.”
Wakefield said this with a smile on her face a politician would envy.
Agent Moore spoke for the first time.
“You can call me Tom. Here are some pens.
Just leave the documents on the table when you’ve finished signing them.”
Then he turned and left the room the way he’d entered.
I crossed the floor and signed the document without reading it. I needed to know what Wakefield knew, and that was the only way she was going to tell us. I watched as Valerie and Leecy both sped-read through the document, reading the entire page in seconds before signing it.
“Great,” Wakefield said, and gathered the papers. “Thanks for your indulgence; now we can continue. Where was I?”
“You were talking about how every agency, not just the NSA, has the capability to access cellphone and email data,” Leecy reminded her.
“Thank you, Leecy. That’s right. When INESCO popped up in their data mining last month, Valerie, the following keywords were connected to your company’s name: sale, bidder, and millions.”
Wakefield stood and walked toward the mini bar. She opened the small fridge and removed a bottle of water. Twisting the cap off, she took a sip, and then returned to her seat before continuing.
“Help yourself,” she said. “Don’t be shy. See,” she paused again, taking another sip of water before replacing the bottle’s cap and placing it on the table, saying, “What the public doesn’t understand is that the data doesn’t come streaming to us in conversation form, at least, not yet, anyway. No, that only happens if we have a specific email address or phone number to track. Take my call with Ron last night. I assumed, because of the APB on your heads, that any phone number he used was compromised. So to protect the contents of the phone call, I scrambled the transmission. If anyone was listening to our call, all they heard was static. We don’t get static when we are searching the data, but we get all the calls jumbled together, or linked end-to-end like one long run-on sentence. Do you follow?” Wakefield asked.
I answered, “Yes; continue, please,” before Leecy could speak. I could see Leecy had a lot on her mind and wanted to ask Wakefield a thousand questions.
“Now, in this INESCO case,” Wakefield began again, “it’s not working as effectively as we’d envisioned. We can’t determine what every one of the conversations is about. We’re pretty sure, however, that there’s going to be an attempt to sell an INESCO product before Sunday at noon.”
I could feel Val gasp, though she hadn’t made a sound anyone else could hear.
Wakefield stood up and motioned for us to follow her.
We trailed behind her into one of the connecting rooms. There were three Agents seated at computer terminals. The female Agent that had met us at the elevator, Agent Moore, and what looked like a teenage boy were working keyboards at lightning speed.
“You’ve met Agent Moore. He’s not only one of my top technical analysts, but also a supremely qualified field agent. This young lad,” Wakefield gestured toward the teenage boy, “is new to the team and a recent graduate of MIT. His name is Zachary Taylor. Yes, he looks young, but all that matters is he’s highly skilled.” Wakefield now pointed to the woman in the bright, white shirt that had greeted us at the elevators. She was clutching at the object attached to her necklace – another bad habit, I thought. Wakefield said, “And this is Senior Technical Advisor Julia Sands. She’s Team Leader. These three have been here in Atlanta with me since we got the call on Monday.”
Wakefield turned and left the room. We followed her, and I closed the door behind me. She crossed the den and headed for the other set of connecting doors.
“Why CIA involvement?” Leecy asked as we walked across the room. “Why didn’t the DIA handle it?”
“That’s a good question,” Wakefield acknowledged, and stopped walking. She turned to face us as she answered Leecy’s question. “As one can imagine, the enormous amounts of data to be analyzed can pose a substantial burden for any one agency. Recognizing this fact was the first step in a multi-step process eventually leading to the development of A.D.D.T. or Actionable Data Deployment Teams. The people in this suite with me are all part of my team,” Wakefield said, continuing across the room and opening the door to show us her second, three-man team.
“These three men are my field investigators. Whenever Julia’s team comes across information that necessitates further investigation, these guys hit the bricks. Team leader is Ryan,” Wakefield said.
A short, stocky man with close-cropped, blonde hair, wearing a bright white shirt and black suit, waved a finger in our direction.
Wakefield continued the introductions by saying, “The man on the phone is Franks, and the other guy is Hodges. When these boys hit the streets, they use FBI as their cover.”
Wakefield finished and closed the door.
“Those three guys represent the ‘Action’ part of the Actionable Data Team. And before you ask me, yes, I do think what happened at your home yesterday is directly related to whatever is going on with these data hits about INESCO,” Wakefield said, and leaned back on the couch.
“I assume you and your team have connected the two events, and that’s not just a speculative statement on your part,” Valerie said.
With that question, the doors to Julia’s room opened. Advisor Julia Sands appeared in the doorway carrying a large whiteboard. She propped the board up against the floor to ceiling windows near where I was standing, and stood next to the board like she was waiting further instruction.
“How do they keep doing that? How do they know when to walk into the room with whatever it is you need, Agent Wakefield?” Leecy asked.
Wakefield touched her right ear with her right forefinger and said, “Ear pieces. They’re listening to everything we say.”
“Oh,” Leecy said. “That’s so cool.”
“Yes, it is cool, isn’t it?” Wakefield agreed. “Now, here’s how we have connected the dots, Valerie. Explain what you’ve been doing, Julia.”
Julia cleared her throat and began.
“The top of the board has the names of the two men that broke into your home — James Smotherman and Daniel Pickett. Beneath their names, I’ve listed their histories. The first item listed under Smotherman is his release from Atlanta’s Federal Prison one month ago. I next connected the two men,” Julia said, pointing to a lime green circle and line connecting Smotherman with Pickett, “to a stay at the Fulton County Prison two years ago. As you can see, they were cellmates for sixteen months.”
I stopped listening as Julia continued walking us through the facts we had already figured out on our own, without databanks of eavesdropping. What I was noticing was that the further she progressed down the board, the more the medallion on that gold chain worked itself free from the confines of her shirt.
“What’s that hanging from your neck?” I asked.
“What?” Julia said confused by my off-topic question, as were Leecy and Wakefield, but I could see that Valerie had also noticed the oddly-shaped pendant hanging freely from Julia’s neck.
“Oh,” Julia recovered, realizing what I was asking her and returning the pendant inside her blouse. “It’s the symbol on the command key of my Apple keyboard.”
“Very interesting,” I commented. “It looks like a pretzel.”
Julia smiled as she grasped the pendant beneath her blouse with her left forefinger and thumb and said, “That’s actually one of the many names the symbol has. It’s also known as the Meta key, special key, and shortcut key. It kind of represents the work that I do.”
I was about to say something else when Leecy’s sudden outburst filled the room.
“Oh my god, you guys think there is a mole at INESCO!”
I looked at the board, scanning the information until I read what had elicited such a reaction from my daughter. There it was, near the bottom of the five-foot tall whiteboard.
INESCO has a mole.
“Yes, we do,” Wakefield said.
“But you don’t know who?” Valerie said, as she finished reading the board.
“No, we don’t know the identity of the mole, but it makes sense that there i
s one.” Wakefield stood and walked to the whiteboard, dismissing Julia before saying, “Let’s start with what we do know. We know the identity of the two men that attempted to kidnap your daughter. Fact one, they shared a jail cell for sixteen months. Fact two, they were in possession of sophisticated burglary tools. Fact three, they had weapons with filed-off serial numbers. Fact four, they had a detailed map of your home marking your daughter’s room location, and fact five, one of them had previously worked at INESCO.”
I watched as Wakefield crossed the floor and retook her seat before speaking.
“That prior relationship, coupled with what I told you Leecy overheard Agent Porter say, plus what I got out of Briggs Smith – it all confirms your data mining hits on INESCO.”
Leecy interrupted me.
“If the two guys that broke into our home didn’t know us personally, then someone else told them about us. I see now. Individually, the pieces of data collected point nowhere, but taken collectively, they mean whoever is behind this knows about us. Knows about our family. There has to be an insider.”
“And those two guys, Smotherman and Pickett,” Valerie said, “they don’t know us or anything about us. During our interview in Park City, I told FBI Agent Porter that Pickett worked at INESCO, but as a low-level compounder in the rubber division. Pickett wouldn’t have had any knowledge of what INESCO’s doing in R&D, or of our family’s products, new or old. So your conclusion, Agent Wakefield, is there has to be someone else at INESCO involved. But who?” Valerie turned to face me. “Is the mole the mystery partner Briggs Smith told you about, Ron? Or someone else?”
“Before we start down the mystery partner road,” Wakefield broke in, “let’s talk about the FBI agents you met in Park City: Porter, Briggs Smith, and Travis Smith. There’s no record of FBI agents by any of those names.”
“I’m not surprised the Smiths are fake, but I was convinced Porter was the real deal,” Valerie said.