The Inner Circle (16 page)

He also stockpiled many cell phones, each of which he’d use only once before discarding. A cell phone that was not registered under his name and with a life span of a single call was a further reassurance that no overachieving police detective or FBI agent would ever end up at his doorstep.

On the drive from the NASA compound to a nearby airport, Mansfield made the first call to his top network guy. The phone rang only once before a person answered.

"Bob's Antiques, how can I help you?" the voice said.

Mansfield set up a series of code words with this man to explain exactly what he wanted done though if he was calling this man, there was usually only one thing he needed.

"I was wondering if you could help me find an antique candlestick I would like delivered to a friend of mine."

"Candlestick? I haven't had to find a candlestick for quite a while, sir."

"Yes, I haven't needed a candlestick delivered for a long time."

"Who will this candlestick be delivered to?"

"John Piechowski, a young NASA worker."

Mansfield read off the delivery information, explaining that the best time to deliver the candlestick would be sometime after Piechowski left the NASA compound in his Mustang, license plate ACL-88D.

"And when is the delivery date?"

"Preferably today, if possible."

"I will call my people and see what can be done. The candlestick will be delivered no later than tomorrow."

"Good," Mansfield said. "The usual fee will be transferred to you when delivery has been made.”

Once the phone call was over, Mansfield sighed, a pang of guilt momentarily entering his mind. While he took great pride in the precision and accuracy with which he executed such operations, Mansfield could not help but feel guilty when considering the dire fate of the people who got in his way. But he knew that if there was a way to deal with things differently – and in a more human manner – he would have taken the more positive option. But there wasn’t. And he could take no chances with information as major as this.

As Mansfield’s car sped down the highway, he unrolled his window and dropped the phone onto the highway. He did not have to watch it to know the phone, and any trace of who he just called, had shattered into hundreds of pieces.

It was after three in the afternoon and the president's plane would be well on its way to Africa by now. Mansfield still had one more trip to make before he could fly back to Washington. Hopefully, he would be able to deal with part two of his comet research tonight and catch an early plane home the next day.

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Sarah Rose was about to enter through the swinging kitchen doors when they suddenly swung open and knocked the dirty plates to the ground.

"I'm so sorry, Miss Sarah," the young busboy said.

Sarah told him not to worry about it and the two of them picked up the broken plates. She tried to do this as quickly and quietly as possible, but her boss, Sam, emerged from the kitchen a moment later.

"Could you come in here for a minute, Sarah?"

Sarah followed him into the tiny, sweltering kitchen, knowing that she was about to get yelled at again, but not really caring.

"How long have you been working here?" Sam asked. Sam was an overweight ex-con, always had a face full of stubble and dressed like he was a street person, not the owner of the small diner.

"A couple years, I guess," Sarah answered, showing no emotion in her voice.

"A couple years? Don't you think in that time, you might learn how to walk through a door without knocking over a handful of dishes?" Sam asked, his tone gradually building in anger.

Sarah knew it wasn't her fault that the dishes had been broken. The busboy always seemed to be going through the wrong door, always at the worst possible moments. She could have explained this to Sam, but it was not likely to have made much difference. She knew that Sam still yell at her and then take his remaining anger out on the busboy. Besides, being yelled at could not make Sarah feel any worse about her life than she already did.

"Sorry, Sam. I'll try not to do it again."

"I know you won't." Sam stopped to take a deep breath, and Sarah thought this was the end of the lecture. She was wrong. "Do you realize how bad it looks when a customer sees something like that?"

Of course Sam did not take into account that only two customers were in the whole place. All of his angry words soon seemed to blend together, as Sam's nightly tirade against her led back to the fact that Sarah had rejected his advances too many times. Sarah – though infinitely sad and never with a smile on her face – was still a beautiful woman and she knew Sam was just angry that she paid no attention to him.

When his entire face had turned completely red and he was nearly out of breath, Sam finally stormed away, leaving Sarah to return to the monotony of her horribly boring job.

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"Oooh, you see that car that just pulled up?" Elaine said, staring out the diner's spotty windows at the Mercedes that was coming to a stop in the parking lot. There was only one light that shone on the darkened lot and the Mercedes parked directly beneath it. "He seems a little out of place at a dump like this."

Elaine was the other waitress who worked the night shift with Sarah. She was in her early forties, but her cigarette-stained teeth and wrinkled skin made her appear at least ten years older. Sarah sometimes wondered if she would end up like Elaine one day, lonely and old with no chance of finding somebody to would spend the rest of her life with.

I already lost that one person...

Sarah watched as the man walked into the diner and she showed Peter Mansfield to a booth. Elaine watched from across the diner as Peter smiled at Sarah and tried to talk to her, but just like every other man who ever showed interest in her, Sarah rebutted every advance. The older woman worried about her beautiful, young coworker who seemed so sad all the time, but every time Elaine tried to get Sarah to talk about it, the girl would clam up.

"Oh, he looks like the successful type," Elaine said when Sarah rejoined her a moment later. "And he had that look in his eye, you know."

"What do you mean?"

"Come on, Sarah. You’re a beautiful girl, you should know what that look is."

Sarah blushed but pretended like she did not know what Elaine was talking about. Her customer was a little bit older, probably somewhere in his thirties, but he did have a certain air of authority about him, like he was an important businessman or something.

"And he must have money, sweetheart. Look at the car he pulled up in."

"Money isn't important to me. Besides, the car has rental tags and I'm not interested anyway."

"You worry me, dear, you know that?" Elaine said in a motherly tone.

Elaine was so preoccupied with trying to get Sarah to open up to the rich customer that she didn’t even notice her only table of customers trying to signal her.

"I think you're being hailed," Sarah said.

"Oh no, that little brat is driving me crazy."

Elaine walked over to her table where a man and his child sat. As Sarah walked over to take her customer's order, she saw the young child and his father stand up. The child was about five or six years old and had a mop full of curly brown hair. Sarah was so entranced with watching the child that she didn’t even realize she’d come to a stop in front of Mansfield for nearly a minute, without looking or speaking to him.

"Cute little kid," Mansfield said, snapping Sarah out of her trance. Her face turned crimson and she apologized.

"It's okay," Peter said. "You have any kids of your own?"

"Can I get you something?" she asked quickly, cutting off any further conversation.

After Peter ordered, Sarah promptly disappeared into the kitchen and did not reappear for quite some time. When Elaine walked passed him, Peter stopped her.

"Excuse me," he said politely.

Elaine stopped, a huge smile on her face.

"Can I get you something, honey?" she asked.

"I was actually wondering what the story is with my waitress. Is she involved with anyone?"

"No, dear. She doesn't have a boyfriend or anything like that."

Peter smiled and replied that he was glad to hear that. He mentioned that he was new to the area and was thinking about asking Sarah out.

"I don't know if that would be such a good idea," Elaine said, leaning a little closer to Peter, who instinctively moved back.

"Why not? I'm not her type?"

"That's the thing, I don't think she has a type," Elaine started, as she lowered her voice and looked toward the back of the diner to make sure Sarah had not come out of the kitchen. "I've worked with the girl for two years and she hasn't really told me anything about her past, but I have a feeling she has a lot of demons chasing her."

"Oh, well, nevermind then. Thanks for the warning."

Elaine straightened up and smiled again.

"You know, I don't have a boyfriend either," she said, winking at him. Peter could not tell whether she was serious, but he decided that he was not going to take that chance.

"Sorry, I'm actually married," he said, extending his hand and showing Elaine his wedding band. Her face turned from one of seduction to disgust.

"Jerk," she murmured under her breath before she walked away.

Peter took a twenty out of his pocket and left it on the table. He walked out of the small diner before either of the waitresses came back out of the kitchen.

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John Piechowski finally walked into the fresh night air, breathing deeply and trying to exhale the stale air he’d been breathing for the past eleven hours. He looked down at his cheap watch and was angry that he had wasted so much time working, knowing that all he could do now was go home and sleep before he had to wake up and come right back. It was nearly three hours after he was supposed to get out of work and the parking lot at the NASA compound was much emptier than when he'd entered the building this morning.

John was used to working overtime – it was usually a welcomed monetary gain – but today was different for two reasons. First of all, the two other database people he worked with on the Russian data had been allowed to leave work right after the Pentagon worker interviewed them. John was excited because he thought he’d be able to leave as well, but he ended up feeling very disappointed when that was not the case. Instead, a mountain of work was thrown on his desk and given top priority five minutes before he was supposed to go home.

The other reason John had wanted to at least leave on time was because of the comet he'd discovered while working on the forms. When he first discovered the reference to it, he was excited to do further research and was surprised that he had forgotten all about it. It was a stressful time, he thought.
There was such a rush on all of that work, no wonder the whole thing slipped my mind until today.
The guy from the Pentagon tried to make it seem like he was not interested in the comet, but when he told John to hold off on researching it for a few days, John knew there had to be something to the story.

Moment after the interview, John was going to look into NASA's database for information, but when he returned to his computer, he found it disconnected from the rest of the network. There was also a memo being sent around saying that as of that moment, all computers were being monitored for the rest of the week, and any personal or non-work-related use of them was strictly prohibited. John found this very odd, but he was unable to dwell on the strangeness of this memo because of all the work he had to finish.

When he got into his car, John attempted to put on his seat belt, but the belt would not click, no matter how hard he tried to jam it in.

Great, what an ending to a perfect day,
he thought, letting out a sigh.
  

John drove his car out of the NASA parking lot, passing the strange military security guard who always seemed to give him an attitude. It was a twenty-minute ride back to his apartment, one that he knew would feel much longer tonight because of how tired he felt. The roads were deserted, which was a welcome change from the usual rush hour traffic he normally endured. John rolled down his window so the cool night air would help keep him awake and he turned his radio up until the heavy metal song made his rearview mirror shake.

It was then that he noticed a pair of lights approaching him from behind. The distant dots of light grew into two streaming headlights in the matter of a few minutes, as a large pickup truck closely followed his car. Everything that could go wrong this day seemed to be happening and John soon became angry that the truck driver was tailing him so closely.

"Come on, dude," John said aloud, glancing at his mirror every few seconds. "Get off my tail, I'm already going twenty miles over the speed limit."