The Second Ship (The Rho Agenda #1)(47)

Chapter 31





The brown UPS uniform fit Jack as if it had been made for him. As he walked from the truck toward the house, he adjusted the box he was carrying so it hid the small aerosol can in his right hand. He had expected the address to be close to Ft. Meade, and indeed, once the code was broken, it led to a computer inside a house in Glen Bernie, Maryland, just a few miles from the NSA headquarters.

It certainly looked like someone was doing everything they could to make sure the NSA was the first on the scene. But doing something like using an address near the NSA headquarters indicated a lack of sophistication, maybe even naiveté, that would have the organization’s profilers going nuts. If you wanted to put the message in a bigger nest of foreign spies than were located close to the Puzzle Palace, you would have to put it inside the UN.

Jack rang the bell, and a woman opened it with a smile. “Hi. I wasn’t expecting a—”

The knockout gas hit her full in the face, the surprised intake of air that followed finishing the job as her legs lost their rigidity. Jack continued his momentum, catching the woman’s slumping body as he stepped across the threshold. Immediately behind him, Janet Price, also in UPS attire, walked calmly up to the house carrying another package.

The two of them moved with quiet efficiency as Jack laid the unconscious woman on the couch next to the phone and then moved on, rapidly glancing in each room as he passed. Behind him he could hear Janet pick up the phone and dial familiar tones. 9-1-1.

“Hello, police? Help me. Please hurry. Someone is trying to get into my house. Aaaah.” She coughed weakly then dropped the telephone handset beside the woman’s body on the sofa.

Spotting the computer, Jack pulled the power cord from the back and rapidly disconnected all the other cables from the system. Then leaving behind the monitor and all the peripheral equipment, he opened the UPS box and placed the computer inside.

As he moved out of the small office back into the living room, he saw Janet coming down the stairs giving him the thumbs-up signal. There were no other computers in the house. They had what they were after.

Picking up the two boxes with which they had entered, Jack and Janet walked out the front door, closed it behind them, stepped into the truck, and drove off. The police would be there shortly, and that was a good thing, not that Jack was worried about the unconscious woman. People rarely died from a single whiff of the gas. But there was going to be unexpected company at that address before long, and those late arrivals needed to see the police already on the scene, or much worse violence was likely to occur.

Rounding a corner, Jack pulled the UPS truck into a parking lot where he and Janet left it, carried the box around the side of the building, and slipped into the backseat of a gold Honda Accord.

“Home, James,” Jack said.

Harold Stevens smiled as he pulled out into traffic.





Chapter 32





“Heather! Have you got the news channel on?” Jennifer’s voice on the phone sounded excited.

“No.”

“Turn on CNN now. Hurry up.”

Heather carried the wireless telephone with her into the living room and picked up the remote control from the coffee table with her left hand, almost knocking over the small pot of poinsettias in the process. The aging television hummed to life, the picture gradually fading in over the course of several seconds.

“Are you seeing this?” Jennifer breathed into the phone.

“Hold on a sec.”

“Well hurry or you’re going to miss it.”

“Jen, I’m doing the best I can. My TV is coming on now.”

The announcer was standing in front of what looked like a typical New England–style home in a quiet suburb. The police had established a large cordon around the house and a car that had crashed into a nearby streetlight pole. The car window was bloody, and the camera zoomed in to show several bullet holes in the windshield of the black Ford Explorer.

Heather turned up the volume.

“And so the peace and quiet of this little neighborhood in Glen Bernie, Maryland, was shattered earlier today as the home owner was repeatedly victimized in a strange set of circumstances that has left two men dead and three police officers severely wounded.

“Mrs. Mary Okanian says she was accosted by a man dressed as a UPS delivery man, knocked unconscious, and then robbed. Although she doesn’t remember how, she apparently got in a short nine-one-one call before succumbing to her assailant.

“Then, in a bizarre twist, as police arrived on the scene, another car pulled up, then tried racing away. When police attempted to stop that car, the men inside opened fire on the officers, wounding three of them, before being shot and killed themselves.

“Although police are unwilling to comment on the ongoing investigation, an anonymous source in the department tells CNN that the woman was likely a victim of a turf war between rival organized crime syndicates. When asked what was stolen from the house during the first assault, police declined to comment.”

Heather flipped off the television. “God! Jennifer, that’s the address we selected to drop the final message. I’ll be right over.”

Jennifer met Heather at the front door of her house, obviously distraught.

“Is Mark home yet?” Heather asked as she followed Jennifer up to her bedroom.