The Asset

  “So you’ve thought of everything?” Kennedy asked.

  “Pretty much,” Mitchell said condescendingly, shooting a look at Best.

  “Even making sure Wade Connelly, HRW’s chief engineer, knows about the upgrades? Wade is very hands-on, and TSA represents more revenue than all of HRW’s other contracts combined. He has the ability to delay a DHS-approved upgrade for thirty days if he isn’t satisfied with the specs. What’s the plan with him?”

  Silence. Mitchell looked at Best, hoping he had an answer. Nothing.

  “I guess you hadn’t thought of that. Good thing Wade is a friend of mine. Chances of him throwing a wrench in the works are slim, but it would have been more thorough to make sure he got the paperwork well in advance to avoid it. Anyway, if he calls or shows up, you should probably let me handle him.”

  Juarez was trying to conceal his amusement at Kennedy’s sound schooling of the two smug badasses.

  “Copy that,” Best said amiably, somewhat impressed.

  “Apologies, sir,” Mitchell said, like he meant it.

  * * *

  That afternoon, their first upgrade at LAX went smoothly. Kennedy’s TSA contacts were not in the office, so he quickly installed the bugs in there and Juarez verified their signal. The millimeter wave scanner upgrade was also a snap. Kennedy had chosen a machine that was being operated by some of his recent trainees. He shot the shit with them until Best and Mitchell were finished. LAX was wired and operational in less than two hours.

  “Not bad, chief,” Juarez said, patting Kennedy on the back as they walked to their next flight.

  “Piece of cake,” Kennedy said.

  Day 21

  After LAX, the four of them hit the road nonstop and knocked out sixteen additional airports in Vegas, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Salt Lake City, Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Miami, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Charlotte, Baltimore, DC (Dulles), and Philly. Kennedy’s rapport with TSA chiefs in those airports was solid, and they encountered little or no resistance. He was getting very good at planting bugs and placed even more in other common areas used by the TSA staff. They were averaging two hours or less in each airport, which sometimes made it possible for them to hit more than one airport a day in clustered areas like Vegas-­Phoenix, Miami–Orlando–Fort Lauderdale, and Baltimore-Dulles.

  Kennedy’s road warrior experience was paying huge dividends. With his elite status, he knew half the flight attendants and pilots in the air. If they missed a meal at an airport because they were in a town where restaurants closed at 10:00 P.M., flight attendants would always have some half-decent food they were more than willing to share—especially with a guy like Best, who might as well have been a firefighter the way the female, and male, flight attendants fawned over him. If they were lucky enough to end up on a 777, and they had no time to catch a few winks at a hotel, they were allowed to sleep in crew rest compartment bunks. But, after a long run of smooth encounters, it was time to go to JFK, home of Kennedy’s nemesis, Glenn.

  * * *

  “Glenn is a man of highly predictable habits,” Kennedy whispered to Mitchell and Best as they entered his office and found him sleeping on the job.

  “This asshole is running the entire TSA office for JFK?” Best looked like he was considering putting a bullet in Glenn’s head.

  “This is a good day. Sometimes he doesn’t even show up till noon,” Kennedy said.

  “Jesus.” Mitchell scowled, also sizing up Glenn’s head for a bullet.

  “The good news is it’s Wednesday and he’s sleeping off his Tuesday-­night rec league hockey bender. Probably be out for a while and when he wakes up, he’ll be too bleary-eyed and starving for Chick-fil-A to care what we’re doing. So, let’s get cracking.”

  He took Mitchell and Best to Terminal 1, which serviced all international carriers. It was the farthest walk from Glenn’s office and Glenn hated going there anyway because the terminal manager openly mocked him and the restaurants were too expensive. They zeroed in on one of the scanners in a closed checkpoint line and the TSA agent in charge was a woman Kennedy had trained, so she just waved and smiled.

  Kennedy wanted to keep an eye on Rip Van Winkle, so he let Best and Mitchell do their thing and made his way back to Terminal 4. On his way, he stopped at Starbucks. Lizzy was working and waved him over to grab his coffee at the pickup counter.

  “You’re a lifesaver, Elizabeth.”

  “Stop calling me that. You sound like my dad. And no, I do not have dad issues.”

  “You seem a bit edgy today, sweetheart,” Kennedy said, messing with her.

  “My boss is a blond Nazi robot who keeps giving me shit about everything. My clothes, hair, tattoos, counterside manner—”

  “That’s an actual thing?”

  “This is planet Starbucks, dude. It’s like a religious cult. We worship a mermaid for chrissakes. That should tell you everything. What are you doing back so soon? Couldn’t live without me? That’s so sweet.”

  “That and tying up some loose ends before I head back home.”

  “Speaking of loose ends, that asshole you hate is here.”

  “Which one?”

  “You know, that big angry ginger from Homeland Security? Always gets an Oprah chai like a little bitch.”

  “Shit,” Kennedy said, panicked.

  “What?”

  “When was he here?’

  “Ten minutes ago. Dude, why’re you freaking out?”

  Kennedy looked down the concourse for Tad Monty, the world’s biggest asshole and the last person he wanted to see. Tad had been the most vocal when it came to minimizing Kennedy’s role at JFK. He had hated Kennedy ever since he saw how much he was invoicing for every year and was always giving Kennedy’s competitors advantages in hopes that they could take over some of his business.

  “I need to get back to the office. Thanks, Lizzy.”

  Kennedy left his coffee on the bar and jogged across the concourse. When he got to Glenn’s office, his worst-case scenario was unfolding. Tad Monty and two of his cronies had walked in on Glenn snoring in his own drool pool.

  “Glenn!” Monty yelled.

  Glenn startled violently and knocked a full cup of coffee into his crotch. When he saw Monty and his bulldogs standing there, he tried to act like nothing had happened, despite the brown wet spot on his khakis.

  “Tad, Mr. Monty, I wasn’t—”

  “And you won’t anymore, Glenn. You’re fired.”

  “What? On what grounds?”

  “Really, Glenn? You’re asking me that question? If you can’t see yourself for who you really are, then how the hell are you going to see a threat coming? You’re a lazy imbecile and I should have done this a long time ago. Pack your shit and get out. I’ll finish your shift. Turn in your key cards and badge to my associates.”

  While Glenn began the awkward process of packing up his pathetic desk tchotchkes and holding back crocodile tears, Kennedy tried to slip out.

  “Weren’t you just here?” Monty asked Kennedy, as if he could see him with the eyes in the back of his head.

  “Yeah, I was training new recruits,” Kennedy answered.

  “And blackballing quite a few too,” Tad countered.

  “I just make recommendations on who I think is suited for the job.”

  “Right. I’m not surprised, considering who we had running the show here. So, to what do we owe the pleasure of your visit today?”

  “I’m concerned about this new threat—”

  “We’re all concerned about it. Are you here to babysit?”

  “No, I came to supervise an equipment upgrade for testing.”

  “Excuse me?” Tad said, glaring at Glenn.

  Glenn pretended he hadn’t heard the comment.

  “I said I have—”

  “I know what you said. I just can??
?t believe we weren’t notified.”

  Tad’s cronies moved in next to him, leveling up the intimidation factor.

  “The work order from Science and Tech was sent here five days ago and approved.”

  “Is that true, you idiot?” Tad barked at Glenn.

  “I, uh . . .”

  Glenn pretended to shuffle through soggy papers on his desk.

  “Shut up and keep packing.” Tad focused his twitchy rabbit eyes on Kennedy.

  “Let’s see it.”

  “What?”

  “Jesus, the work order,” he said impatiently.

  Kennedy handed it over. Tad glanced at it and passed it to one of his men.

  “Call it in.”

  “Is there a problem?” Kennedy tried to stay calm.

  “Yeah. This is costing taxpayers a fortune and I want to make sure your buddies at Hadfield Raith aren’t getting fat on the government trough with constant upgrades.”

  “There’s no cost for the upgrade. It’s only a test prototype and it’s for body cavity weapon detection, the one weakness of the millimeter wave scanner,” Kennedy said, choking back the vitriol he had for Tad.

  “What’s the catch?”

  “There is no catch. It’s an upgrade I’ve wanted to test for a long time. I even wrote the grant to get it developed—”

  “Ah! There it is! You’re getting paid. That’s why you’re here.”

  “No. I’m waiving my fee through the testing phase because I know how long it takes to get approvals on these things and I think this will correct a dangerous vulnerability.”

  “You expect me to believe you’re some kind of Boy Scout, doing this out of the goodness of your heart? Consultants care about one thing—soaking their clients.”

  “I care about passengers. That’s why I’m doing this.”

  Tad’s face turned red with anger.

  “You think I don’t care about that?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “I’m denying your upgrade request. And it’s time we reevaluated your role here.”

  “You don’t have the authority to deny it, and the upgrade is pretty much finished. Glenn was sleeping so—”

  “Fuck you!” Glenn said and stormed out of the room.

  “Shut up, Glenn!” Monty yelled and turned to Kennedy. “I have the authority to put a stop to all work I deem dangerous or incompetent. So, let’s just take a look-see at the handiwork of your techs. I have a feeling it may not be up to snuff today.”

  “Let me hit the head quickly and we’ll go take a look,” Kennedy said as pleasantly as he could.

  He felt a protest bubbling up in Tad but ignored it and headed off to the bathroom. When Kennedy walked in, he could hear Glenn weeping in one of the stalls. Kennedy took a stall a few doors down and locked the door. He texted Mitchell, Best, and Juarez about the situation, flushed the toilet a couple of times, and hurried out. Glenn was standing in front of the door, staring at him with red-rimmed eyes.

  “You piece of shit. This is all because of you,” Glenn growled.

  “Oh really, Glenn?”

  Kennedy’s phone buzzed. He needed to get out of there.

  “Did I tell you to sleep on the fucking job?”

  “It all started when you made me look like an asshole, and they’ve been on me ever since.”

  “Glenn, I saved hundreds of people’s lives. That’s my job. Making you look like an asshole isn’t. You do a bang-up job of that all by yourself.”

  Glenn moved to let Kennedy pass, but Kennedy knew it wasn’t over. He had visions of the guy showing up at the Hotel Bel-Air with an assault rifle.

  “I’ll see you around,” Glenn said, reinforcing Kennedy’s paranoia.

  When Kennedy arrived at Terminal 1, Mitchell and Best were just finishing up the installation. They kept their cool when Monty stormed up and nearly shoved them aside to take a look at their work.

  “Guys, this is Agent Tad Monty from DHS. He’s conducting a spot inspection of our work today,” Kennedy said in his most matter-of-fact tone.

  While Mitchell and Best deftly explained the installation to Tad, he berated them, asking irrelevant questions, and the cronies sidled up to Kennedy.

  “We have a few questions for you, consultant boy,” one said.

  “Yeah. Just to make sure all the paperwork is in order,” the other chimed in.

  Monty thought he was clever, trying to create a Spanish Prisoner situation by separating him from Mitchell and Best to see if their stories matched up. He walked over with a smug grin.

  “You’re going to fully brief my agents on every detail of this upgrade while we get someone from HRW to assist me with my inspection.”

  “These men are with Hadfield Raith,” Kennedy argued.

  “Management. Not the help,” Tad said loud enough for Mitchell and Best to hear.

  Kennedy had to think quickly. If they got someone in management from HRW to come to the airport, and they could do it by snapping their fingers, it was over. The CIA had done a decent job of creating a believable facade, but Tad Monty was about to huff and puff and blow their house down.

  Dead man walking. That’s what Kennedy felt like as Tad’s cronies followed him back to Glenn’s office. When they arrived, some of the recruits he had trained smiled and waved at him. Some of the more boisterous ones even gave him a low-key shout-out.

  “You’re a real celebrity around here, aren’t you?” one of the goons said snidely.

  “Compared to you guys, I’m Brad fucking Pitt.”

  Kennedy could feel his anger rising and wasn’t sure how long he would be able to control it. They all sat around Glenn’s desk. One of the cronies snatched Kennedy’s work order from him and examined it, as if he knew what he was looking at. The other picked up the phone and called HRW, barking orders that Homeland needed a senior tech person from HRW to come to JFK as soon as possible to inspect an upgrade. The good news was that the person on the line at HRW verified that the upgrade was in the system, in keeping with what Best had told him earlier. But that was only going to hold them off so long.

  Kennedy was racking his brain, trying to figure out a way to keep them from physically inspecting the gear, when Mitchell walked into the room, startling everyone.

  “Need some gear,” he said apologetically.

  He closed the office door behind him and opened a large tool case he and Best had brought with them that day. Kennedy watched out of the corner of his eye. Mitchell was taking his time, stealing glances at Monty’s men as he worked. Kennedy was relieved, figuring Juarez and his men must have schemed a way out.

  “When did you first submit paperwork to DHS for your prototype grant?” one of Monty’s men asked.

  “A few months ago.”

  “And you thought it required immediate implementation?”

  “Do you know how large the human colon is?” Kennedy asked.

  “What are you talking about?” the man asked.

  “Five feet long and three inches in diameter. Now, if I were to keister that much Semtex or C4 and detonate it on a plane, do you think I could bring it down?”

  “I don’t know—”

  “You bet your ass I could.”

  Mitchell laughed out loud.

  “Shut up!” Monty’s crony yelled.

  “But I could easily get it on a plane because these machines can’t detect objects hidden in body cavities,” Kennedy continued, on a roll, “which is why, since we started using them, the international heroin trade has more than doubled.”

  A piercing alarm went off—the kind that only sounded in the event of an attack inside the airport.

  “Holy shit,” Kennedy said.

  The cronies made calls on their mobile phones, shouting at the people on the other end of the line for answers. Mitchell made a cal
l as well. Kennedy couldn’t hear what he was saying, but it was a short conversation. As soon as he hung up, Mitchell pulled a power drill with a chrome socket on the end from out of his tool case and snapped it shut. While the cronies finished their calls, he made some adjustments on the power drill. Then the cronies jumped out of their chairs and headed for the door. Mitchell moved quickly, cutting them off.

  “I think we’d better stay here,” Mitchell said.

  “Get out of the way, idiot—”

  Mitchell raised the power drill and pulled the trigger. With a pneumatic pop, a bullet ripped through the first crony’s forehead and he crumpled to the floor. The other one stared at his partner in disbelief. When he finally went for his gun, he took a bullet in the mouth and keeled over onto his dead partner. Mitchell pried the slugs from the wall behind them and shoved them into his toolbox.

  “Let’s go,” he said casually.

  “You . . . Oh my God,” Kennedy stammered.

  Mitchell grabbed his gear and moved Kennedy to the door.

  “Now.”

  Kennedy’s mind was racing as he and Mitchell hurried out onto the concourse. He couldn’t think clearly. All he wanted to do was run. He heard people screaming, and the two of them followed the sound until they saw a swarm of airport security officers and police near one of the gates. Tad Monty was there, shouting something. As soon as Kennedy got close enough, he could hear what he was saying.

  “Get these people out of here!”

  Then the crowd parted enough for Kennedy to see that Glenn had shot himself in the head and was lying on the floor near one of the gates with a .38 caliber revolver in his hand and a halo of blood on the carpet. A flight attendant covered in blood was screaming uncontrollably.

  “Keep moving,” Mitchell said, and pulled him through the gathering crowd.

  They ran through the concourse. Best picked them up in a maintenance golf cart and drove them to the closest exit. Juarez was waiting for them by the curb in an ambulance. They all jumped in and sped away with the lights and siren going. Kennedy felt like he was having a nervous breakdown. He had heard the term before, and used it jokingly, but now he knew what it really meant. His heart was racing so fast, he thought it was going to explode in his throat. He could only take shallow breaths and his stomach muscles were so tight he could barely exhale. His hands and feet were tingling and starting to go numb. The worst part was the emotional blitz tearing through his coping mechanisms and going right for the throat. Juarez’s voice broke his panic.