Page 9

W ASHINGTON , D.C.

S tarting at the British Embassy, all the way to Thirty-Fifth Street, Massachusetts Avenue had been completely closed off to through traffic.

After Carolan and Fields flashed their FBI credentials, a D.C. Metro cop pulled back a police barricade and allowed them to proceed.

Two blocks before the crime scene, a staging area had been established. Parking their car, they got out and headed for the cluster of blue tents and FBI Evidence Response Team vans.

Until this morning, Carolan hadn’t planned on visiting the scene. It had nothing to do with him. That had all changed when Assistant Director Gallo had called him at home and had instructed him to get down to headquarters as soon as possible.

They met in Gallo’s secure conference room, where the assistant director played an eleven-minute video of Russian intelligence officer Josef Vissarionvich being debriefed.

It was in this debrief that the man had dropped his bombshell.

Within the last twelve months, Russia had launched a new covert spy unit, the Department of Special Tasks, or SSD for short.

Composed of veterans of Russia’s most dangerous clandestine operations, its goal was to destabilize the West via a series of shadowy attacks, including sabotage, assassinations, cyberattacks, and bomb plots, as well as political influence operations involving blackmail, disinformation, and cultural subversion.

It was housed under the auspices of Russia’s military intelligence agency known as the GRU, and had absorbed key elements of the FSB, Russia’s largest intelligence agency, as well as completely consuming Unit 29155, a deadly black ops group.

One of the SSD’s first and most audacious plans had been named Chernaya Liniya . Operation Black Line.

It was a plan to tip America into chaos; to rupture the social fabric, pitting citizen against citizen, and collapsing the country from within.

According to Vissarionvich, a tidal wave of violence and terror was to be unleashed, making every American feel unsafe. Then the media outlets sympathetic to the party in power would be used to turn members against each other, creating factions that would further do battle among themselves.

The concept was akin to the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution.

Russian intelligence was convinced that America was already so partisan and so divided, that with a push here and a little nudge there, it would—much like the ancient symbol of the ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail—devour itself.

What had prompted Gallo to summon Carolan, however, was a very specific tactic outlined in the plot—high-impact, mass-casualty attacks on highly visible political protests. Exactly like what had happened last night.

Wondering if perhaps Vissarionvich had seen news of the attacks on TV and fabricated the Russian plot to leverage a better deal, Carolan put the question directly to his boss.

Gallo’s response had chilled him to the bone—the interview was eight days old.

“Eight days?” Carolan had responded angrily. “Why the hell weren’t we read in?”

No sooner had the words left his lips than he knew what the answer was going to be. First and foremost, they had to tread lightly. It could have all been bullshit.

There was always the possibility that Vissarionvich had allowed himself to be captured just so he could spin falsehoods and get the FBI and CIA chasing their own tails.

Without any corroborating evidence, anything the Russian gave up had to be treated as highly suspect. There had been no reason to disseminate any of it until now.

The attack on the protesters outside the Vice President’s Residence might have been an amazingly unfortunate coincidence. Any intelligence operative worth their salt, however, was taught to never believe in coincidence. That was why Gallo had put Carolan and Fields on the case.

Because there could be a Russian link, the assignment was a political hot potato, which was why the assistant director wanted them hidden in the basement and reporting only to him.

Their job was to find out if the Russians were behind the attack and, if there really was an Operation Black Line, to smash it. Gallo would make sure they had anything they needed to get the job done.

Carolan had lingered in his boss’s office, watching the rest of the debrief, gathering as much information as he could.

One of the most disturbing revelations, if it could be believed, was that the Russians had unnamed American politicians under their control in both political parties.

Had President Mitchell lost the election, the SSD had another plan, Operation Red Line, ready to target a new administration under his opponent.

If this was true, it was a massive breach of the United States government.

What’s more, given the current political climate, Carolan had no idea how the hell the FBI would ever be able to smoke these people out.

Under President Mitchell’s orders, the Department of Justice had already shut down its FBI-run election integrity unit, which focused on keeping America’s enemies, especially Russia, from tampering with U.S.

elections. If a single word leaked that the FBI was looking into the potential Russian subversion of any American politicians, much less from Mitchell’s own party, heads would be on pikes outside the White House by lunch.

Making matters worse was the fact that Vissarionvich’s knowledge of the Black and Red Line operations wasn’t firsthand. As a deep-cover operative in the United States, his assignments had been adjacent to the SSD, but he’d never had direct access to the new organization.

Unless the Russian spy was holding out a name or something else really big to trade, these broad brushstrokes were likely all that Carolan was going to get. If there was any “there” there, he was going to have to make it work. Hence his dragging Fields to the literal scene of the crime.

As they signed in, a voice from behind them said, “Would you look at this. The office overachievers have arrived.”

Carolan didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. He recognized the man from his voice.

Agent Matthew Kennedy had been in the FBI almost as long as Carolan. He was a South Boston guy, born and raised. And despite having spent decades living in the D.C. area, he had never fully lost his Southie accent nor his caustic sense of humor.

He looked like a Hollywood version of a G-man straight out of central casting. He was tall, trim, and had a jaw like an anvil. The only thing shorter than his nails was his hair, which bordered on a crew cut.

His dark blue suit was perfectly pressed, and despite the rising heat and humidity, there wasn’t a bead of perspiration on him.

His shoes were so highly polished that you could shave in them.

Capping it all off was a tie bar—a piece of personal flair and a relic from a bygone age.

Carolan, who was certain the man carried stainless-steel toothpicks and wore a pinky ring off duty, hated the guy’s guts.

“Hello, Matt,” he said, clicking into diplomacy mode. “It’s good to see you.”

“What the hell is CROS doing here?” Agent Kennedy asked. “I don’t see any Russians around here.”

“Well, part of the crime scene includes the Norwegian ambassador’s residence and Norway shares a border with Russia so—”

“You need to work on your geography,” the man said, interrupting him. “Norway shares a border with Sweden.”

Fields, who had absolutely no time for this guy, rolled her eyes and walked away. She didn’t want to say something she’d regret.

“We do a lot of intelligence sharing with the Norwegians,” Carolan explained. “We’re just here as a courtesy to our contacts back in Oslo.”

It was the cover story he and Fields had developed on the drive over from headquarters. It seemed to satisfy Agent Kennedy.

“If you need anything, we’ve got an admin team on-site. They’ve been logging all the evidence,” the man said.

Looking around, Carolan asked, “What about the bodies?”

“Those have already been transported.”

“Have you ID’d any of them?”

“The victims? Yes. Although the cops in the van were burned beyond recognition. The fire was so hot, it even melted their badges. We’re going to need to do DNA testing on the remains, but in general,” said Kennedy, “we know who they are.”

“What about the attackers?”

“Nothing yet. None of them were carrying ID. We’ll run their prints and photos through all the databases and see if we get any hits. We’ll also be tracing their weapons, and BATF already has samples from the explosives and is running tests.”

As much as Carolan didn’t care for the man personally, professionally he was a solid, by-the-book agent. Based on everything he had said, he was doing everything right.

“Is there anything that doesn’t fit? Anything you’re trying to make sense of?”

Kennedy shook his head. “Beyond the motive—the why of something like this? No. We’ve got the guns, the shell casings, all of it.

The shooters were White, American-looking males in their thirties.

It doesn’t appear to be Islamic terrorism, but we don’t know that for sure yet.

Prima facie, it looks like a homegrown scenario. ”

“So that’s the working hypothesis? Extremism?”

“I don’t know what else you’d call it,” the agent replied. “Who shoots up a bunch of unarmed people exercising their First Amendment right?”

Carolan didn’t disagree. “What were the victims protesting?”

“They’re unhappy with the new administration.”

“So, opponents of President Mitchell.”

Kennedy shook his head again. “We interviewed all of them. Every single one voted for Mitchell.”

“Then why were they protesting?”

“They’re angry. They think Mitchell has gone soft; that he’s moderated and is backpedaling on a lot of his promises.”

“He’s definitely not the same guy he was on the campaign trail, that’s for sure,” Carolan replied.

“What was that old comedy bit about a president’s first day on the job?

They take you out to Area 51, let you give the alien they have locked up there a purple nurple, and then they drag you back to the Oval, sit you down behind the Resolute Desk, and plop this huge binder in front of you with all that world’s problems, which have now become your problems.”

“I’m guessing that would be enough to change a person.”

“The alien or the binder?”

Carolan chuckled. “Both.”

“You’re probably right,” Kennedy said with a smile before continuing. “Listen, I’ve been here most of the night and am about to head home. There’s a new lead site agent taking over. I’ll let him know you’re here. If you need anything, he’ll take care of you and you can always get me on my cell.”

“Thank you,” Carolan said, extending his hand. It was easily the most civil exchange he’d had with the man in years. Perhaps the asshole in him was petering out.

The pair shook hands and went in different directions.

Carolan had only made it a few yards when Kennedy called out to him and said, “Hey, Joe! I was only kidding about Sweden. I know Norway also has a border with Russia, up top in the north. A little over a hundred miles.”

“No points for looking it up on your phone as I walk away, Matt! Better luck next time.”

Kennedy grinned and very subtly, not to mention very unprofessionally, gave him the finger.

Shaking his head, Carolan turned around and kept walking. Maybe the asshole in him wasn’t receding. Maybe it had just been taking a nap.

Kennedy took his time logging out from the crime scene. He kept his eyes on Carolan and Fields until they disappeared into the Norwegian ambassador’s residence.

Once they had, he returned to his car and removed a second cell phone—his burner—from beneath the passenger seat.

There were only a handful of numbers in the list of contacts. As he pulled out of his parking spot, he found the one he wanted and he pressed the call button.

When a voice answered on the other end, Kennedy said, “I think we may have a problem.”