The Asset (13 page)

“Very nice,” he said.

“You hate it here, don't you?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Painfully.”

“Sorry. I like to come here to remember them but I just can't abide the whole cemetery thing.”

“I'm with you. But it is peaceful. Find me another place this quiet in LA.”

“How was New York?”

“Good. The album is starting to take off. Thanks to Mr. Nic Harcourt.”

“I never got to tell you that's how I heard about the show. Great interview.”

“You think? I thought I sounded like an indie snob.”

“No, you sounded like the architect of your own destiny.”

“
That
was a beautiful, yet utterly esoteric, thing to say.”

“I wish I could take credit for it. I'm quoting Noah Kruz.”

“The self-help guy who takes up half the shelves at airport bookstores?”

“He's more of a success guru.”

“You say tomato,” Love joked.

They sat for a while in silence before Love got up to tidy the stones, pulling weeds and crabgrass around them.

“Do you ever dream about Belle?” Kennedy asked.

“All the time,” Love said. “We're always swimming for some reason. Boogie boarding down by Manhattan Beach Pier or doing cannonballs at my folks' pool. She was like a fish. You almost had to drag her out of the water or she'd never leave.”

“Tell me about it. She made my dad buy that cheap-ass aboveground hillbilly pool. I stopped inviting friends over that summer.”

“That thing was filthy after about two weeks!” Love said, laughing. “What about you? Do you dream about her?”

“Not really,” he lied. “I'm a light sleeper so I don't dream much at all.”

“That sucks. My dreams are more vivid than reality.”

Kennedy was staring blankly at Belle's headstone.

“I'm sorry, what?” he said.

“Are you all right, dude?”

“Yeah. I'm cool. Why?”

“You're
not
cool. I can tell. I know that face. It's your golf face. Every time you had to drag ass off to one of those tournaments, you had that no-vacancy look.”

“I have this big work thing coming up so I'm a little preoccupied.”

“What's the big thing?” she asked, sitting down by him again.

“It's kind of like I'm going on tour, actually. I've been asked to visit twenty-five airports in about two weeks' time.”

“Is that even possible?”

“Yeah, but it's going to be a bitch. And I'm really not looking forward to it.”

“Shocker. Sounds awful.”

“Yeah . . . You know, if something ever happened to me . . .”

“Whoa, where's that coming from?” she asked.

“Hear me out. If something ever happened to me, you're my only real next of kin. We're not blood relatives, but I don't really have anyone else who would qualify as family, you know?”

“Do you want me to pull the plug when the time comes?” She tried for a joke but couldn't hide her look of concern.

“I'm not saying that. I guess I'm kind of asking if that's okay with you. If I choke on a PBJ in my hotel room, you'll tell them where to scatter my ashes.”

“Wow, you have been on the road
way
too long, my friend. Yes of course it's okay with me, but you're not going to die from a rogue sandwich or anything else. We're friends again, so I require you to be alive for that. Understood?”

Kennedy smiled and nodded.

“Good. And no matter where you say you want to be scattered, I'm just going to chuck you in the fry grease at In-N-Out. You've always loved that place and I would get a kick out of watching folks eat fries that day. Cool?”

“Sounds like a plan. Maybe we should go there now and scout it,” Kennedy said.

“Graveyard soul session followed by greasy burgers and shakes. Again, you sure know how to treat a lady.”

Day 8

I
deposited your first payment
this morning,” Alia said.

It was 6:00
A.M.
and she and Juarez had come to his hotel for a breakfast briefing. Alia handed him a black credit card with no writing or numbers.

“When you're holding this card, you can access your new account at our bank in Grand Cayman. The chip inside will authorize transactions by reading the heat signature emitted by the capillaries in your fingertips. The account can't be accessed via phone, Internet, or any other electronic means. You have to be there in person to withdraw funds. There are two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in there now. As long as you don't deposit any of it into any US banks, it's tax free. And there will be five more of these payments as the assignment progresses. Is that satisfactory?”

Kennedy was slightly shocked but did his best to hide it.

“That's fine. What about my expenses while I'm on assignment?”

Juarez handed him a leather briefcase.

“Cash and credit cards for travel are in the case. The cards have no limits. Also, I don't want you using your iPhone when you're working for us. Way too risky.”

Juarez handed him a satellite smartphone.

“Keep this on you at all times,” Juarez said sternly. “This is a closed sat ­network everyone in Red Carpet is on. Works like any other smartphone—­
calls, data, e-mail—but it contains a GPS tracker so we know where you are at all times. Our techs set it up to receive calls, texts, and e-mails forwarded from your clients and personal contacts, so you can stay in touch with them. But only do that with this phone.”

Game time apprehension was building on Kennedy's face.

“Kennedy, I want to make sure you're clear that, once we begin, there's no turning back until it's done,” Alia said in her gentle yet penetrating way.

“Wow, no pressure,” Kennedy half joked.

“Last chance to walk away,” Alia said.

“I'm not going anywhere.”

Juarez smiled, a silent shot in the arm for Agent Bland.

“Excellent.” Alia sighed. “Because without you, I don't have an operation. If you're successful, you'll be a true hero. And these days, those are in short supply.”

Alia briefed Kennedy on the movements of the Red Carpet team already out in the field. Lambert was touring major airline equipment manufacturers in Asia. Like Kennedy, he was going to leave a few souvenirs from the CIA behind—bugs that would enable Alia to have eyes and ears in those companies. Langley analysts had a theory that Lentz may attempt to purchase parts, sabotage them, and get them into airplanes via his airport operatives.

Trudeau was traveling around Europe and the Middle East, meeting with his contacts to see if he could flush out any leads. He had begun to focus on Eastern Europe and Russia, as they would be the places where Lentz's buyers could get a lot of firepower for his money with zero governmental interference. With every visit, he also loaded a data surveillance program Nuri had given him into any laptop or workstation he came across. This allowed her to lift transaction data and send it back to Trudeau for analysis.

Alia was ready to deploy Kennedy that afternoon and get him started planting the CIA's surveillance equipment in airports. He and Juarez would start at LAX, cover the West Coast and Southwest, and then work their way east. They went over logistics, and Kennedy helped refine the travel plan based on his more extensive knowledge of the airports and routes. When they were finished, bugging twenty-five airports in two weeks seemed doable, but there'd be little room for error.

After breakfast, Kennedy grabbed his garment bag and they went to the private terminal at LAX to meet Best and the other agent who would
be installing the tech. LAX's private terminal catered to celebrities, government officials, and the über wealthy looking to avoid contamination by the unwashed masses. Alia had chosen it for the meeting because security was much tighter than at the rest of the airport, with a “paparazzi-free” environment constantly swept for listening and viewing devices, and zero exterior vantage points for long-lens peepers.

Best and Mitchell, the other field agent assisting them, were there waiting, geared up and ready to go. Mitchell was the polar opposite of Best—rough around the edges, dark and brooding. His eyes were predatory slits, and he seemed to be made of nothing but sharp-angled bones and hardened ropes of muscle. And his personality matched his look—quiet and deadly serious, showing no signs of levity or even friendliness. Both men were dressed in starched work shirts with the Hadfield Raith Worldwide logo. HRW was the top airport security equipment vendor in the country. They manufactured the millimeter wave scanners that would be getting the fake upgrade equipment.

While Best and Mitchell took care of the scanners, Kennedy's job was to plant the video, audio, and data bugs Alia needed in the airport's TSA office. Juarez showed him the surveillance tech. The devices were tiny, as small as the point of a golf tee.

“These are powered by radiant heat, like solar but without sunlight. They need a minuscule amount of juice to operate, emit no signal of their own, and they're so small you paint one white and it would blend into a bowl of rice. To tap the network, all you need to do is log on to their employee Wi-Fi with the laptop we're giving you. Nuri has an auto-send virus loaded with decoy programs to send their network security on wild-goose chases. While that's happening, our data-capture bug loads in the background.”

When they finished the briefing, Alia left to catch her flight to DC. Kennedy was feeling confident about their planning, but one thing was bothering him. He was skeptical that Best and Mitchell, the two killing machines she'd sent with them, would be able to truly pass as HRW techs. He'd been around those super geeks for years and felt like attempting to fake their knowledge and expertise was a stretch. He decided to test that theory with his traveling companions.

“Guys, what do I tell my TSA chiefs is the function of this new gear?”

“New sensors to detect weapons and explosives concealed in body cavities.”

“Too bad it isn't real,” Kennedy said. “Show me what we're going to show them to sell this.”

Mitchell handed him a tablet computer with the HRW logo. It had operational schematics and a white paper about how the “new technology” functioned.

“Impressive. Can I see the device itself?”

Juarez showed Kennedy one of the upgrade devices. It was a three-foot copper tube, three inches in diameter, with thick caps on the ends containing the connection wires and power cable. Mitchell showed Kennedy how it exactly matched a part from the millimeter wave scanning machines.

“And it won't impede scanner operation?” Kennedy asked.

“No, it's designed to work exactly like the part it's replacing,” Juarez said. “The only difference is we've added our tech inside, so unless you physically take it apart, you're never going to see it.”

“How the hell are we going to travel with these?”

“We won't have to. At each airport, a field agent will meet us outside the security checkpoint to give us the device,” Juarez said.

Kennedy turned to Best and Mitchell.

“You guys can walk the walk with the HRW uniforms, but can you talk the talk with the actual working parts of the equipment? This whole thing will come off the rails pretty quickly if one of my more savvy TSA chiefs starts asking questions you can't answer.”

“We've been training on these specific models for six months,” Mitchell said with annoyance. “We probably know them better than HRW's techs.”

“Even though all of this has been cleared through DHS, some of my clients are OCD and/or paranoid, so they'll definitely want to contact HRW to verify the work. How are we going to handle that?”

“All work orders have been added to the HRW maintenance logs,” Best said. “If anyone calls it in, the phone center workers will verify it.”

“So you've thought of everything?” Kennedy asked.

“Pretty much,” Mitchell said condescendingly, shooting a look at Best.

“Even making sure Wade Connelly, HRW's chief engineer, knows about the upgrades? Wade is very hands-on, and TSA represents more revenue than all of HRW's other contracts combined. He has the ability to delay a DHS-approved upgrade for thirty days if he isn't satisfied with the specs. What's the plan with him?”

Silence. Mitchell looked at Best, hoping he had an answer. Nothing.

“I guess you hadn't thought of that. Good thing Wade is a friend of mine. Chances of him throwing a wrench in the works are slim, but it would have been more thorough to make sure he got the paperwork well in advance to avoid it. Anyway, if he calls or shows up, you should probably let me handle him.”

Juarez was trying to conceal his amusement at Kennedy's sound schooling of the two smug badasses.

“Copy that,” Best said amiably, somewhat impressed.