He looked everywhere in his own office; opened every drawer, checked every piece of furniture, every file folder he had on his desk. Nada. Exhausted, his knees weak from excess adrenaline, he let himself drop in his chair.
He tried to retrace his steps on the day before, but couldn’t focus. He had been in and out of the office, but everything was a blur. The entire day he had been painfully aware of each surveillance camera in the building and had to jump through hoops to avoid them.
He remembered he had to go to Norfolk Harbor with the project team for a few hours after lunch, but he was positive he had left the documents carefully hidden under his area rug at the time. He couldn’t remember when he took them from there, or where else he went; his memory was failing under the wave of brainwashing adrenaline.
Maybe he simply hadn’t copied that page… errors can happen, he thought. He must have just skipped it by mistake. Steadying himself, he grabbed the original of the missing page and ventured to the mailroom again. The slower-than-molasses copier finished the one page copy job just as the mailroom clerk came in with the day’s mail delivery, giving him a start.
“Can I help you, sir?”
“Y — yes,” he said, holding the manila folder with the original and its copy as if he were about to hand it to the clerk, “can we ship something overnight to our New Zealand office? What’s the procedure?”
He hoped the clerk would not pick up on the strong smell of copier toner, activated by heat in the antiquated copy process, or notice how badly his hands were shaking.
“You need it interoffice, sir?”
“Yes,” he confirmed.
“You’d need an IE9D form filled, signed, stamped, and attached to the document package, together with your auth code.”
“All right, I’ll get that started.”
He left the mailroom briskly but couldn’t bring himself to breathe until he was alone in the elevator.
He had a few more hours until the drop… he was going to make it with plenty of time to spare.
…34
“Just show me exactly where you found it,” Mason Armstrong encouraged Terry, following him inside the Sprinter with some difficulty.
Armstrong, the chief of internal security for Walcott Global, had a painful, bothersome limp in his left leg, an unwanted memento of his days in the US Secret Service. He had been in the service of President Bill Clinton, a president so peaceful that few people still remembered the 1994 assassination attempt that took place at the White House. Armstrong did, however, because one of the bullets fired on that day by the attacker’s semiautomatic weapon had shattered his femur, leaving him crippled and desk-ridden since he was thirty-one.
Despite several rounds of reconstructive surgery, Mason never walked straight again, and every time he put his weight on that leg it was a painful reminder of what a single fateful moment can take from one’s life. None of that pain showed on his face though. Completely bald and clean-shaven, with features that appeared carved in stone, immobile, and free of any emotion, Armstrong was perfectly suited for the high-stress job he had. He remained calm under any circumstance, an invaluable skill he picked up during his training with the Secret Service, a skill that had proven useful many times.
As head of security for Walcott Global, he was responsible for every aspect of security, from the protection of the company’s physical facilities, to the safety of its employees, and the safeguarding of all information. Armstrong combined his calm, thoughtful mental process with a procedural, structured approach to all events and situations. He had earned the trust and respect of his employer for the smooth, efficient, and discreet handling of all matters security, regardless of how delicate.
Armstrong watched as Terry demonstrated where he had found the document, using a blank sheet of paper snatched from Armstrong’s printer.
“When’s the last time you detailed the van?” Armstrong asked, jotting down notes.
“Yesterday morning, sir.”
“How many times has it left the garage since then?”
“Five times, sir. One outbound, two airport pickups, and two roundtrips with our teams.”
“Get me the lists of all people who touched or used the van since the last time you detailed it. You keep logs, Terry?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll get you everything you need.”
Armstrong stepped out of the van slowly, holding on tight to the handrail on the door.
“Onboard cameras would have been nice to have now, right, sir?” Terry ventured.
“Yes, definitely,” Armstrong confirmed with a frown.
Armstrong had been an advocate for video surveillance in all company vehicles, but with no success. Walcott’s CEO had resisted the thought, stating that it would insult their guests and visiting officials with such a blatant manifestation of distrust, shown as early as an airport pickup — their first contact with Walcott Global. Maybe the current situation would get him to reconsider.
“Did you touch the document with your hand at any time, Terry?”
“No, sir, I wear gloves when I work on the vehicles.”
“Good, good,” Armstrong said, giving Terry an encouraging pat on the shoulder before he turned away and walked toward the main building.
A few minutes later, he closed the office door and immediately pulled out his cell phone, using voice recognition for his command.
“Call Sam Russell, encrypted,” he said.
“Calling Sam Russell, mobile, encryption active,” the smart phone’s robotic voice answered.
Two short rings later, a familiar voice picked up.
“Mason, hey, good to hear from you,” Sam said.
Armstrong stifled a sigh before responding.
“Well, maybe not so good… Sam, I need your help. How fast can you get here?”
…35
He closed the door behind him and leaned against it for a minute. It felt good to be home after such an emotionally draining day. He closed his eyes and let out a deep breath, loosening his tie. He’d made it home in one piece, documents included. He could make the drop now, and that was going to be easy.
He went straight for the dining room table, where he placed his briefcase carefully on the shiny surface. He pulled the curtains shut, making sure their edges overlapped to ensure perfect privacy, and only afterward he turned on the lights.
He opened the briefcase and carefully tugged at the bottom lining, separating it from the edge on one side. He gently pulled the file folder from underneath the lining, and then he stuck the lining back under the edges with his fingernail.
Photographing was next. He took an older digital camera, one that didn’t connect to anything via any technology, Internet, or Bluetooth; one that didn’t have a GPS built in. It was a simpler model, one of the first to use an SD card. He opened the file folder and started photographing the pages one by one, in the right order.
As he worked, his hands steadied and his heart rate dropped to more normal levels; he was getting used to the idea of what he was doing; he was getting more comfortable walking on the path of no return. He had no regrets… he was actually happy he was going to even the score with his employer… the bastards deserved what was coming to them, and more. That feeling of accomplishment, of setting things right overcame all his fear — fear of getting caught, of spending the rest of his days serving a life sentence for treason, fear of death.