Administrative Housekeeping

  Part One

  Fitz Hume was seething mad.

  Jeffrey Saunders had just left his office on Bleaker after delivering a wholly unhelpful report about the ongoing Elmira investigation. No answers, no leads, a massacre in a bank, and a house just outside of town obliterated by what some of the younger residents called “a mini nuke”.

  Still, it seemed the damage had been contained, and their cover story was holding for now. But none of that gave him the answers he sought. Even his ace in the hole, Malcolm, had come up empty in his search.

  So as much as he hated to admit it, the cold hard truth was, Foster Evers was in the wind and Justine Rushing was probably along for the ride.

  Even his three flat screens were now mostly silent. The only one displaying anything remotely interesting was the middle screen. And the only thing it displayed was his agency email account.

  Ignoring the ones from two senators calling for his job, Edgar instead focused on the one from the head of the CIA that stated in no uncertain terms that they were thrilled with the new encryption program. Against his better judgment, Edgar decided to save that one.

  The next one on the list was from his son.

  He clicked it.

  An article appeared about the championship game. Beneath it, Robbie wrote that he was excited about the story. He even mentioned that a certain girl had texted him about it. Edgar couldn’t remember which girl Robbie had a crush on. But for some reason, he thought her name was Marcy.

  His son liked somebody.

  Between that and Foster’s program being reactivated, nothing short of World War 3 could touch him. After all, Fitz Hume knew how cyclical Washington was. The locals would whine, and a few senators on the hill might want to have a hearing. But in the end, he had delivered the holy grail of intelligence gathering.

  He was just about to close the browser down when another email popped up.

  The email’s title was I KNEW IT.

  Fitz Hume didn’t recognize the name, but the NSA had the most sophisticated spyware and security programs on the planet now, so he was sure this wasn’t junk mail.

  With a click of his mouse, the message opened. Only two words were in the subject line: PLAY ME. Below that was a video attachment. Edgar thought this might be a YouTube video of his son’s game, so he opened it.

  It wasn’t.

  Instead, what he saw in the video was a soaking wet Foster sitting quietly on a bed.

  Dressed in boxers and a white tee shirt, he was drying off his hair with a towel. Right away, Fitz Hume recognized where he was. It was that dumpy hotel near the airport that the marshals always used. The same hotel from the beginning of this little nightmare.

  “Why are you smiling ?” the director asked the non-responsive computer screen.

  “Hello, Edgar,” Foster answered almost on cue even though the message was prerecorded. Still, his tone was infuriatingly light as he finished drying off before throwing the towel across the room and out of frame. “If you’re receiving this message, it means that you have done exactly what I expected you to do. You tried to have me arrested.”

  The tiny veins in his temple began to throb, and his palms were sweating up a storm. Why had Foster recorded this message three days ago and why was he sending it to him now? Fitz Hume didn’t even know until yesterday that he was going to place him back in custody. Again, it seemed that his old friend was more prepared than him.

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  Edgar hated that.

  “You’re probably wondering why I’m doing this. Asking yourself questions like: Did he know ahead of time? Is he some kind of mad genius?” Foster leaned back on the bed and sighed. “The answer to those questions is no. If you had kept up your end of the bargain, you would be receiving a completely different message.”

  Fitz Hume felt a little better. Maybe Foster was just paranoid.

  “First off, let me say that I don’t blame you. The position my theories put you in couldn’t have been easy. Hell, if the roles had been reversed, I might have locked myself up too.” Foster put up his hand to signal that he needed a minute. A second later, he was nibbling on a candy bar. “It’s the little things that you miss the most.”

  Fitz Hume’s face broke out with a smile. He was still extremely pissed off and still wanted to catch the annoying little shit. But somehow, his mood had improved.

  “So, I don’t blame you if you’re in the middle of a manhunt right now. To prove it, I wish you the best of luck trying to hunt me down like a dog.”

  The director chuckled.

  “But I must warn you, Edgar. This won’t be like last time. I’ve had eight years to prepare for this, and if you don’t mind me tooting my own horn...” He pretended to blast a ship’s horn by pumping his arm. “There won’t be any agents knocking down my door this time around.”

  Again, without explanation, Foster ran out of the frame.

  Edgar was close to cracking up. Foster was good at the technical side of things, maybe even the best. But he wasn’t a field agent. The places he would have to hide to escape the director’s resources were a hell of a lot worse than Wilson ever was. In fact, the thought of his old friend hiding out in some third world shithole was almost enough to call off the search right now.

  With a small jump, Foster hopped back on the bed. “Sorry about that, I had to pee.”

  Fitz Hume leaned back in his chair, and for the first time in the past twenty-four hours, the tension in his neck and back eased off. The angry emails drifted away. The fuming calls were forgotten. Hell, he even started planning a picnic with his family this weekend. This video was priceless.

  And once Foster was back in custody, he would have to play it repeatedly the next time he was feeling stressed.

  “One more thing, Edgar.” Fitz Hume really wanted to hear a veiled threat about going to the press or Congress. That would make his day.

  “I want you to know that the program I reactivated will continue to work perfectly in my absence. I didn’t embed any safety nets this time. Your analysts will be swimming in non-stop intelligence for probably the next two years. So,” he mocked a salute to the camera, “... happy hunting.”

  This outcome was unexpected but not unforeseen. History had taught him that Foster could be cagey. That’s why Edgar had his best people go over the code with a fine-tooth comb to make sure that the NSA never lost such a powerful tool again. Doubts about their ability had lingered in his mind after they found nothing of consequence.

  But after hearing Foster verify their findings, he was almost on the verge of tears. Today could very well be the happiest day of his life. And that included his wedding day.

  Happy with what he had recorded, Foster leapt from the bed. He was about to switch the camera off when something else seemed to occur to him. He knelt before the camera, so his face filled up the entire screen. Fitz Hume found the blown-up image of Foster’s face disturbing.

  “Edgar, upon opening this email, whatever device you’re using will have sent a command to some hidden servers back at Ft. Meade. In turn, those servers will start transmitting data files to the heads of every intelligence service on the planet.”

  Foster grabbed his broken blackberry off the nightstand. While looking at its screen, he silently counted down from five. When he reached one, he snapped his fingers in the universal sign of being finished.

  “So as of now,” he put the blackberry down a little too theatrically. “Everybody you were hoping to spy on has a working copy of my code-breaking program.”

  Foster smiled again. Only this time, it wasn’t a sly grin. It was an evil one.

  “That means, I won’t have to worry about you chasing me, Edgar. Because once the CIA traces that transmission back to your computer, you’ll be too busy running from them to give me a second thought.”

  The disheveled ex-mental patient reached up and fumbled with the recording device. The image became slightly distorted as he shifted the camera back and forth. Before the video ended, Foster leaned in even closer to the camera lens until only the prominent features of his face were discernible.

  “You should have given me a chance eight years ago to prove I was right, Edgar. But you didn’t then, and you didn’t now.” Foster’s voice grew low and menacing. “And to be honest, I’m glad you decided to screw me over one last time. After all, I did owe you a little bit of revenge. And guilt free revenge at that. Because remember… you did this.”

  Fitz Hume paused the video then grabbed the homemade candy dish off his desk and slung it against the nearest wall with all his strength. Fragile on the best days, his son’s gift smashed into what felt like a million pieces.

  As the tiny mints scattered in every direction, he bellowed, “I did this!?”

  Had he?