“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“I got a tip from someone recently that the CIA sometimes stashes guys within the Department of Defense before they go off to start their training at the Farm in Williamsburg. Does that sound right to you?”
“Yeah, sure. That’s possible. Probably gives them time to do a full background check. And places like the Farm have to schedule classes just like any other big government school. So it might take guys a few months before they’re ready to class up. So what?”
“Is there any way you could check out Max Fend, and see if he was one of those guys?”
“Sure, I could do that. But, Jake, why don’t you just go ask the CIA?”
“I will. I just like to check multiple sources.”
“Alright, I’ll see what I can dig up for you.”
6
Max Fend’s first stop was at a storage center in Leesburg, Virginia. He drove in at night, wearing baggy clothes and a golf visor pulled down low over his forehead. He typed in the code and heard the beep, the chain fence sliding over to one side. He drove along the rows of storage units and parked in front of his rental.
He fidgeted with the lock until the right combination was entered. It snapped open, and Max lifted up the sliding garage door. It stopped with a bang. Max then flipped the light switch, illuminating two trunks in the center of the otherwise empty storage space. A stale smell hung in the air.
The rented-out garage had been his own personal decision. After operating as a field agent for over ten years, he didn’t trust anyone. He had his own plan to disappear, if need be. A “break glass in case of emergency” plan that no one else knew about but him.
Max closed the garage door behind him and found himself alone with his stash. He moved quick, his hands and eyes racing from item to item. He knelt on the floor as he worked.
Max emptied the contents of the first trunk and then closed it to serve as a surface to work from. He placed a laptop on the closed trunk, plugged it in to a large portable battery, and powered it up.
He took the phones, IDs, and prepaid debit cards that the MI6 agents had given him and threw them all into the empty trunk. Max would use his own items.
He took out his own prepurchased phone and entered the number he was supposed to dial tomorrow night at exactly six p.m. He named the contact SECRET AGENT. No reason he couldn’t have a sense of humor about it.
Max connected the computer to his phone and used it to access the Internet. He accessed a secure cloud drive and opened a spreadsheet file. The file was his little black book. People whom he had known and worked with over the years. Max paid a virtual assistant — a very capable and trustworthy one — quite a good sum of money to keep this list up to date. Should he ever find himself in a certain place, in need of someone who had a particular skill, he could rely upon this list.
There were several hundred names on the spreadsheet. He could sort by column: name, country, state (if in the US), and skill set.
He needed someone close. He didn’t have the time or the inclination to travel far right now. He set the filter for the eastern half of the United States. All within range. And all had rural areas that he could fly into easily.
Next he sorted for skill sets. He had decided on just five skill categories. Procurement. Tactical. Tradecraft. Transportation. And cyber. Each person had multiple columns. Some people on his list had multiple skill sets.
He filtered for cyber. A half dozen names came up. While they were each listed as living in the stated locations, he knew from looking at several of the names that most would be out of the country. On assignment.
One name stuck out. Renee LeFrancois.
Max hadn’t seen her in years. He clicked on her name and looked more closely at her updated file. His virtual assistant was expected to keep each personnel file current. It was costly, but Max had the means.
He read over her file. One thing surprised him. She had been married. He hadn’t known. Then again, it wasn’t like she would have invited him to the wedding. Her file said she’d gotten divorced two years earlier. She now lived alone and did contract IT security work. No obvious red flags.
Max still didn’t like the idea of going to her. She didn’t have experience in this type of thing. Her computer skills were off the charts, but who knew how she would react when she found out that he was a wanted man?
Not to mention their personal history. Things hadn’t ended badly for them, but they hadn’t exactly ended well, either. He tried to think of the last time he’d seen her. It must have been at least eight years ago. Princeton reunions, he thought. Drinking together on the dance floor under a massive tent. Screaming into each other’s ears, trying to have a meaningful conversation over deafening music. That meeting had been bittersweet.
Max pushed out any personal feelings he might still harbor. He needed to be clinical about this decision.
He once again looked over the list of personnel who were located on the East Coast of the US. Most were “Tactical” experts. Those were the types of men who specialized in weaponry and warfare. They weren’t on the list for their knowledge, but for their skill. They were the black bag job boys.
Max didn’t need people like that. He had already prepared for something like this. For running and hiding. He had supplies, transportation, and money all lined up. Some people prepped for a future Armageddon; Max prepped for the day when someone might come after him.
What Max really needed was someone who could help him investigate who had done this to him, and what he was up against. Someone who could understand the world of cyberespionage. That field was a mystery to Max.
That left two names.
One was actively employed by the National Security Agency. Max didn’t want to go to him. There was too much risk. Max was being pursued by the US government. Most of the people on his list got their paychecks, in some way or other, from Uncle Sam.
He sighed, frustrated by the painful realization. That might cross off ninety percent of his contacts.
He would have to try Renee. She was trustworthy, and in relatively close proximity. She wasn’t, nor had she ever been, employed by the US government. And when she was able to access a computer, she was magic.
Max closed up his laptop and slid it into the backpack that contained his prepared items. His own false IDs, weapons, and cash.
There was a good chance that everything the MI6 team had passed on to him was perfectly usable. But he hadn’t procured it himself. What if the IDs were flagged? What if the phones were being tracked? Even friendly operatives made a habit of doing that. No, the best way to stay alive was to assume that everyone and everything else might be compromised.
Five minutes after he’d entered, Max walked out of the garage and locked it behind him, got into his car, and drove to the Leesburg Executive Airport.
Max left the Audi in the parking lot across the street from the airport. He pulled the backpack tight on his back and then hopped the fence, landing in the grass.
Leesburg Executive Airport was small by most standards. It was mostly used by general aviation and private aircraft. One of those planes was his.
Washington, D.C. airspace restrictions were notoriously onerous — there were precise rules that general aviation aircraft had to follow in order to get in and out of the area. But Leesburg Executive had a special triangular cutout in the Air Defense Identification Zone around D.C. That would help make things a bit easier.
Max doubted the FBI knew about his plane. Max’s virtual assistant had used a shell company to make the purchase and pay for the maintenance and hangar fees.
It was a single-engine piston. A Cirrus SR-22T. He had hired a local operator to take care of it and lease it out every so often to one of the local flight instruction companies, just to make sure that it was working. Until today, he had never flown it personally. He would always rent the same type of aircraft from other locations.