“Yeah,” Lucas said. “I won’t do that.”
“Gimme Rae’s email.”
“Don’t hit on her,” Lucas said.
“Hey, I’m with the FBI. Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity—FBI.”
—
SMITH SAID IT WOULD TAKEa while to put a file together, and they sat and restlessly watched a Nationals game for twenty-five minutes, then Lucas’s iPad dinged, and the file came in. A minute later, a string of letters and numbers came in for Rae: “Hey, sugar bun, I’d gr8ly like 2 take U out 4 a drink someday.”
“That can’t possibly be the code,” Rae said.
Bob: “Sure it is. Remember what he said about using regular sentences as keys? And what Lucas told him about hitting on you? He’s delivering the encryption code and hitting on you at the same time.”
“He’s not a bad-looking guy, either,” Rae said. “Tall. Intelligent.”
“Bald,” Bob said.
Lucas said, “Jesus, Rae, just type the fuckin’ thing into my file.”
She did, and the new file opened up: twelve documents and thirty emails.
“Not much,” Rae said.
“Ritter was disciplined,” Lucas said. “Probably cleans out stuff he’s not using.”
“Even though he knows we could never crack the encryption without the code?” Bob asked.
“Even then,” Lucas said. “If you got something you don’t need, get rid of it.” He thought about the Ritter bank statement he’d flushed.
—
BUT RITTER WASN’T PERFECTLY DISCIPLINED.
The longer files contained details of shipments to Libya,Niger, and Iraq from Heracles—there were no details of what the shipments might be—that Ritter, McCoy, and Moore would be escorting to their final destinations. There were names of recipients and places mentioned, along with notes on briefing times, and, occasionally, enigmatic labels that seemed to Lucas to be cautionary: “Maziq is reliable and knows his way around, and he’s always got protection, both physical and political, so you’ll be okay there,” and, “You can’t count on Jibril to back you up if push comes to shove (which it won’t). Be aware that he’s belonged to four different militias that we know of, and they’re not friendly with each other, so he’s a guy who’s willing to change beliefs like he changes his shorts. If he changes his shorts...”
Another one said, “Every time the cases are out of your sight, check the seals when you get back. Even when you get off the plane. This shit can’t get pieced out or we’re in trouble.”
A third one said “Beware the OGA, they’re thick in there.”
“I wonder what the OGA is?” Lucas asked.
“I know that,” Bob said. “It stands for ‘Other Government Agency,’ which means the CIA.”
“Got it.”
“The FBI needs to see this,” Rae said. “What about the emails?”
Most of the emails were cryptic. They came in from several people at Heracles, but mostly said things like “We still on for two?”
Then they found the maps.
Lucas clicked on an email titled “Here” and, when he opened it, found two satellite blowups of tight areas of West Virginia. One had a dot on what appeared to be the intersection of a dirtlane and a back road less than half a mile from Smalls’s cabin above the South Branch of the Potomac.
The other displayed a “path” that went from the point of impact, where Ritter’s truck hit Smalls’s Cadillac, to the back road above the cabin, to the spot where the logs that had been on the side of the truck were dumped.
They all read it, half disbelieving, until Bob tapped the screen where the trail intersected with the back road. “This is a scouting report, setting up the attack. Somebody was set to watch Smalls—here. When they left the cabin, he would call Ritter, in the truck, and walk out to where the truck was going to pick him up—here. He’d be picked up, and they would drive out to the place where they dumped the logs. After that, it was over the hill and back to D.C.”
