Any Means Necessary

Trudy’s face was stone. “You should ask Swann about that.”

“Okay.” He took a step toward Swann’s little fiefdom in the corner.

“Luke?”

He stopped. “Yeah.”

Her eyes darted around the room. “Can we talk? In private?”

* * *

“You’re going to fire me because I won’t break the law for you?”

“Trudy, I’m not going to fire you. Why would you even think that?”

“It’s what you said, Luke.”

They were standing in a tiny utility room. There were two empty desks in here and one small window. The carpeting was new. The walls were white with nothing on them. There was a small video camera mounted in one corner, near the ceiling.

It looked like the room had never been used. The command center itself had been open for less than a year.

Trudy’s big eyes stared at him intently.

Luke sighed. “I was giving you an out. I thought you would understand that. If trouble comes down, you can blame it on me. All you did was what I told you to do. You were afraid you’d lose your job if you didn’t follow my orders.”

She took a step closer to him. In the confines of the room, he could smell her shampoo, and the understated cologne she often wore. The combination of scents did something to his knees. He felt them tremble the slightest amount.

“You can’t even give me a direct order, Luke. You don’t work at SRT anymore.”

“I’m on a leave of absence.”

She took another small step toward him. Her eyes were focused on him like twin lasers. There was intelligence in those eyes, and heat.

“And you left… why? Because of me?”

He shook his head. “No. I had my reasons. You weren’t one of them.”

“The Marshall brothers?”

He shrugged. “When you kill two men in one night, it’s a good time to take a pause. Maybe reassess what you’re doing.”

“Are you saying you never had any feelings for me?” she asked.

He looked at her, stunned by the question. He had always sensed Trudy flirting with him, and he had never taken the bait. There had been a few times, drunk at cocktail parties, after bad fights with his wife, when he had come close. But thoughts of his wife and son had always pulled him back from the brink of doing something stupid.

“Trudy, we work together,” he said firmly. “And I’m married.”

She came even closer.

“I’m not looking for a marriage, Luke,” she said softly, leaning in, inches away.

She pushed herself against him now. His arms were at his sides. He felt the heat from her, and that old uncontrollable urge when she was near, the excitement, the energy… the lust. She reached up to lay her hands on his chest, and as soon as her palms touched his shirt, he knew he had to act now or give in to her completely.

With one final act of supreme self-discipline, Luke stepped back and gently pushed her hands away.

“I’m sorry, Trudy,” he said, his voice raspy. “I care about you. I really do. But this is not a good idea.”

She frowned, but before she could say anything, a heavy fist banged against the wooden door.

“Luke? You in there?” It was Newsam’s voice. “You should come out and look at this. Swann’s got something.”

They stared at each other, Luke feeling guilty as hell as he thought of his wife, even though he hadn’t done anything. He peeled himself away before anything more could happen and couldn’t help wondering how this would affect their working together.

He also, worst of all, couldn’t help but admit, deep down, that he didn’t want to leave the room.

* * *

Swann sat a long table with his three video monitors arrayed in front of him. With his thinning hair and glasses, he reminded Luke of a NASA physicist at mission control. Luke stood behind him with Newsam and Trudy, the three of them hovering over Swann’s narrow shoulders.

“This one is Ken Bryant’s checking account,” Swann said, moving his cursor around on the center screen. Luke absorbed the details: deposits, withdrawals, total balance, a date range from April 28

to May 27

.

“How secure is this connection?” Luke said. He glanced around the room and out the door. The main room of the command center was just down the hall.

“This?” Swann said. He shrugged. “It’s independent of the command center. I’m connected to our own tower and our own satellites. It’s encrypted by our guys. I suppose CIA or NSA could have somebody trying to break it, but why bother? We’re all on the same team, right? I wouldn’t worry about that. Instead, I would focus on this bank account. Notice anything funny?”

“His balance is over $24,000,” Luke said.

“Right,” Swann said. “A janitor has a pretty sizeable chunk of money in his checking account. Interesting. Now let’s go back a month. March 28

to April 27

. The balance goes as high as $37,000, and he starts spending it down. There are transfers here from an unnamed account, $5,000, then $4,000, then, oh well, forget the whole IRS reporting problem… give me $20,000.”

“Okay,” Luke said.

“Go back another month. Late February to late March. His beginning balance is $1,129. By the end of the month, it’s over $9,000. Go back another month, late January to late February, and his balance never reached $2,000 the whole time. From there, if you go back three years, you see that his balance rarely went above $1,500. Here was a guy living month to month, who suddenly started getting large wire transfers in March.”

“Where are they coming from?”

Swann smiled and raised a finger. “Now for the fun part. They’re coming from a small offshore bank specializing in anonymous numbered accounts. It’s called Royal Heritage Bank, and it’s based on Grand Cayman.”

“Can you hack it?” Luke said. He glanced sidelong at Trudy’s disapproving look.

“I don’t have to,” Swann said. “Royal Heritage is owned by a CIA asset named Grigor Svetlana. He’s a Ukrainian who used to be in the Red Army. He got himself in deep with the Russians twenty years ago, after some old Soviet weaponry disappeared and then turned up on the black markets in West Africa. I’m not talking about guns. I’m talking about anti-aircraft, anti-tank, plus some low-altitude cruise missiles. The Russians were ready to hang him upside down. With nowhere to turn, he turned to us. I have a friend at Langley, and the accounts at Royal Heritage Bank, far from being anonymous, are in fact an open book to the American intelligence community. Of course, this isn’t something most Royal Heritage customers are aware of.”