Traffic was creeping along at its normal glacial pace when she hit the Beltway, causing her to do a lot of stopping and starting. Every driver who caught her eye seemed to be scolding her for being a scofflaw.
Garcia felt like an enormous stone had been lifted off her chest when she crossed the river and entered Virginia without being stopped. She took the exit just before Highway 193 and meandered through the back streets until she found an Embassy Suites in Tysons Corner.
A false ID and credit card from her go-bag got her past the desk clerk with no problem. Palmer had always stressed the necessity of having identification her agency didn’t have on record. Too many agents had lost their lives over the years because some moles gave up a list of cover identities. Thankfully, Palmer had been in a position to have documents made that were completely real but for the names associated with them.
Garcia began to feel the aftereffects of conflict and the fatigue brought on from her ten-K run as soon as the desk clerk slid the room key across the counter. Her stomach growled, demanding to be fed. She grabbed a bowl of instant ramen and a Diet Dr Pepper from the snack store. She debated on an ice cream bar, but decided she’d best stay at her fighting weight.
The room was freakishly clean compared to how she normally lived. There were no piles of clothing on the floor or dishes in the tiny stainless-steel sink.
“Give me time,” she muttered under her breath. “I’ll wreck it.”
She tossed the go-bag on the bed and went through the contents while she waited for a coffee cup full of water for the ramen to heat up in the microwave.
Jericho had taught her never to step out her door without at least four things — her sidearm, a knife, a light, and something to start a fire. EDC, he called it — Every Day Carry. With those four items you could get any of the other bullets, beans, and Band-aids that might become a necessity.
Ronnie reached under her blouse and pulled the Flashbang holster and Kahr PM9 from where they hung suspended comfortably from her bra. She put the gun on the wooden nightstand beside the bed, and then took out her wallet, folding knife, LED flashlight, and Zippo lighter and set them beside the pistol.
Inside the go-bag, there was a Browning Hi-Power, because if she needed the bag, things were floating south in a hurry and a second gun was always faster than reloading. The Browning ate the same 9mm ammo as her diminutive Khar, but carried thirteen rounds in the magazine and one in the tube — a real plus when things got sticky. Jacques Thibodaux, whose mantra was “Don’t go to a gunfight with a handgun in a caliber that doesn’t start with at least a four,” turned up his nose at the puny 9mm. But her hands were on the smallish side for being such a big girl in other places. She reasoned that it was better for her to hit with a 9mm than miss with a .45. Besides, the Browning just felt good and the inside-the-waistband holster made it possible for her to carry it concealed as long as she had on a loose blouse — two of which were also included in the go-bag. Jericho had insisted she include a fixed blade in her kit, so there was a wicked little two-finger thing his knife-maker friends in Anchorage had given him called the Scorn — along with extra magazines for both pistols. In addition to the weapons, she had a wound kit, two more flashlights — you could never have too many of those — a small pair of binoculars, a pair of jeans, comfortable running shoes, a baseball cap, a pair of polarized Oakley sunglasses, a Windbreaker, extra socks, and two pairs of underwear. Four thousand dollars in rolls of twenties and hundreds and another burner phone rounded out the contents of the bag. There had been five, but a thousand had gone to the kid with the motorcycle.
Satisfied she had what she’d need for the short term, she mixed the ramen and sat back on the bed to drink her diet Dr Pepper. She’d lost count of how many nights she’d spent in business hotel rooms just like this one — during training, on missions, interviews, polygraphs, and clandestine meetings with contacts. It was easy to wake up and have no idea where you were. Cookie-cutter designed, they were all virtually the same — with nice furniture, heavy blinds, and the lingering odor of someone else’s cologne.
The ramen did little to take the edge off her adrenaline-stoked hunger. She pulled back the sheets and fell back on the bed. Hands behind her head, she closed her eyes and thought about ordering room service.
Her eyes flicked open at a sudden thought. What if the IDTF had somehow installed cameras in this room? She knew the notion was absurd. It had been a last-minute decision. She hadn’t even known where she was going to stay until she rode into the parking lot. But the feeling of being watched was a hard one to shake. The flashing green light on the smoke alarm in the center of the ceiling caught her eye. Smoke alarms had a built-in power source. They were the perfect place to hide cameras and listening devices.
She stood up and double-checked the latch over the door, hoping that would make her feel better. It didn’t. Jericho had often accused her of having a panic button on her back that made her agonize over little things whenever her head hit the pillow.
She considered another shower, but shoved the thought out of her mind. Getting naked again today was not an option. In the end, she leaned a chair against the door and then climbed into bed wearing all her clothes. Worrying over Jericho, she glanced at both pistols in the dim glow of the nightstand clock as she fell into a fitful sleep. Her panic button was working overtime.
Chapter 33
Virginia Ross found herself shoved unceremoniously into the backseat of a black Suburban. It was nearly identical to the armored one her protective detail used but for the fact that instead of tinted bulletproof glass, this one had blackout material fixed to the windows.
“Curtains,” the director mused, as Walter slid in the backseat beside her. “I half expected to have a black bag pulled over my head.”
Agent Walter chuckled. “We’re not heathens, Director Ross.”
“Well,” Ross said, crossing her hands in the lap of her gym shorts. “Would you mind telling me what this is all about?”
“In due time,” Walter said. “In due time.”
He sat in silence throughout the rest of the trip, looking at his phone and ignoring her completely.
It took them the better part of an hour to get wherever they were going. The driver kept the air conditioner on its coldest setting for the entire trip. Ross folded her arms across her chest in an effort to keep from shivering. Wearing nothing but her damp T-shirt and thin running shorts, she was freezing by the time they came to a stop.
Walter didn’t even look up.
“Are we just going to sit here all night?” Ross asked, looking forward to even a brief moment of warm outside air.
Walter groaned, stowing his phone back in the inside pocket of his wrinkled gray suit.
“All right,” he said. “But if I were you, I wouldn’t be too excited.”
Ross had been inside prisons before, but her knees nearly buckled at the sound of the heavy metal door slamming shut behind her. She’d been witness to several… intense interrogations, the memory of which only added to the fear roiling in her chest. A second door, identical to the first one, formed a small mantrap prior to the main receiving area visible through a tall, slender window. It began to rumble open as soon as the first door slid closed.
Walter and another man, younger and blond with bad acne, flanked her, each holding an elbow as if there was anywhere else she could go. A shadow behind the dark tint of a huge window — presumably the control center — buzzed them through another door. A long, polished hallway with tiny windowed cells running the length of both sides stretched out in front of her. She recognized Brigadier General Tim Crutchfield in one of the cells. An Army advisor to the Secretary of Defense, he’d given an interview with Rolling Stone magazine about his views on the new administration — and disappeared shortly after. She slowed to look, but his head ducked away from the window when he saw Walter.