“You got something for me I understand.”
He turned to her and said, “What, no small talk? How have you been?”
“I think I know how you’ve been,” she said, stepping closer to him. “Fishing in Patagonia, followed by testifying before congress and becoming an internet sensation, and then traveling to Montana with the U.S. representative from that state, where you killed a man.”
“You left out getting kidnapped here in DC.”
“And your appearance on The O’Reilly Factor. That wasn’t smart.”
“Maybe not,” he said. “But I had a feeling the right people would be watching.”
She studied him carefully, seeing if she could still read him as she had in the past. “You let them follow you to Montana?”
Jake shrugged. “They had me cold. Could have killed me. They made it far too easy for me to escape. So yeah, I let them follow me for a while.”
“And then you asked a friend at the NSA for help finding that man who had kidnapped the professor in Montana. You could have asked me.”
“I didn’t want to bother someone at your level,” he explained.
Toni looked frustrated with him. Like she had been too many times in their past. Perhaps that was why they were not still together. “You think we don’t know what’s going on here? It’s a lot more complex than you might know.”
“It always is, Toni. Let me guess, you’ve been tracking this technology for quite some time, along with Professor Tramil at Oregon State. Just waiting for the guy to break through. Then you caught others interested as well. Why didn’t you protect the man?”
“We tried, Jake. They were both offered positions with DARPA. Neither wanted that.”
“But you were going to get this technology one way or another,” Jake said with an edge to his raised voice.
She said nothing, which revealed a lot.
He continued, “You hired the man I killed in Montana to take this technology.”
“You’re crazy,” she yelled quietly, her chest rising with anger. “That’s not the way we work.”
It was a bad idea to imply she was behind the murder of that professor, and Jake felt like shit for doing so. But Toni was telling him a lot less than she knew. “I’m sorry. I just don’t understand how the Agency could stand on the sidelines with this type of technology out there. Tramil’s work could change the way we operate. The way our military operates. The way your Agency operates. You’ve got to admit it makes no sense to hold back protection of those two Oregon State professors.”
Toni sat back onto the bed, her shoulders slumped. “We had some intel that others were interested in the professors, and especially Tramil. As you know we are not supposed to work within our borders.”
“Yeah, I know. But that hasn’t stopped you before. Why wasn’t this turned over to the FBI?”
Toni considered that and leaned back onto her arms. “Trust is a fragile thing, Jake. This is bigger than the FBI. And it’s still evolving. There could be a number of State actors involved, which is our concern.”
Jake knew how this worked. Neither organization wanted to trust the other until it was absolutely necessary. “What about the video I sent you? Who are those two Bozos?”
Sitting up again, Toni said, “That I can share with you. The bald guy is a man named Danko Boskovic. And the one with long hair is Alex Yaroslav.”
“Sound like Ukrainian or Russian,” Jake said. “Maybe Czech.”
“Good guess. Boskovic is former GRU from Odessa, and Yaroslav is from Prague. He was an agent for the Russian CVR and was paid by the BIS.”
The BIS was the Czech Security Information Service. Jake had worked with them a few times. “Who are these two working for now?” Jake asked.
Toni shook her head. “Good question. That’s what we’re trying to find out.” She hesitated. “Do you have the professor’s work?”
Jake shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out the flash card, which he threw to his old friend.
“You could have just zipped the data, encrypted it, and uploaded it to me.”
Smiling, Jake said, “I know. But maybe I still like to do some things old school. Besides, I thought it was best to make sure the congresswoman got back to DC all right. But it is encrypted and password protected.” He told her a series of fifteen numbers and letters he had used for the password, knowing she would find significance and remember it within seconds.
She got up and put the flash card into the front pocket on her slacks. “She is quite pretty.”
“That has nothing to do with it,” he assured her.
Looking toward the door, Toni said, “What will you do now?”
“I should be in Tierra del Fuego right now catching sea-run Browns,” he said. “I might just grab my gear and head back to the end of the Earth.”
“Or…”
“No fucking way,” Jake said. “I’m not working for the Agency again. Besides, you can’t afford me.”
“Jake, come on. You know you can’t retire. Fishing is for young boys and old men. You’re not there yet, my friend.”
She was so full of shit. His passion was with dry flies and nymphs. If he wanted to wade chest high in a freezing mountain stream with morning mist rising off the crystal clear water, he sure as hell wasn’t going to be goaded into working for the government again. “You know how I like my independence, Toni. I don’t like others telling me what to do or when to do it.”
Toni smiled at him. Yeah, she knew this. “I think I might know you better than anyone else on this planet. What if I can guarantee you autonomy?”
“And if I get jacked up like in Tunisia, you’ll still be there to bail my ass out?”
She raised her arms like Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro. “Have I not always been there for you, Jake?”
Yes, she had. And that was the problem with turning over the professor’s data directly to Toni. She knew that he would have a hard time saying no to her. Maybe Jake should have just uploaded the research to her. “What can I possibly do that your people can’t do?”
Her brows scrunched down with contemplation. “I can trust you, Jake.”
“And you can’t trust your own people?”
“We have a leak somewhere. I’ve been trying to plug it for a while, but no luck.”
He’d worked with leaks in the past. It was never fun. Maybe that’s why he worked alone now. “You always seem to have a leak. So, what do you need me to do?”
Toni came to him and gave him a big hug. “I knew I could count on you.” Pulling away and holding his arms, she continued, “The actors in this could be State players, but it could be companies that want this technology.”
“Like we found with the Hungarians years ago.”
“Right. Yet, it could be both. We could have companies paying for the op, using these former intel officers to divert attention away from their own country.”
“That’s what I would do,” Jake agreed. “If I’m China I’d use former French agents. Maybe Canadians.”
“So you’re not buying this Czech and Ukrainian and Russian cabal?”
He shook his head. “Not really.”
“Me either.” She started toward the door and stopped.
“You’re forgetting something,” Jake said, a huff of laughter in his words.
Turning to him, she said, “Right. Where do we go from here.”
She knew exactly what she wanted to tell him, Jake knew. Toni was very good at her job, and her job was to use the best people to reach the best result. And she had probably orchestrated this entire conversation. She also knew that Jake would acquiesce to her before she stepped foot in this Ritz-Carlton. But, since Jake knew what she was doing, it wasn’t like he was being manipulated. He was simply a willing actor in her play.
She explained what she wanted from him, obviously leaving out almost as much as she told him. Compensation would flow directly to his bank account in Luxembourg, and Jake knew it would probably come from some obscure internet porn site. Toni had a great sense of humor.