Hi-jacked / FRW

Chapter 10

Senators are Fair Game

9:40 AM, Day 7, Judge Marks' Chambers:

When the three of them were admitted to the Judge's chambers, Rossabi said, "Your Honor. Thank you for giving me the time to bring in Agents Burk and Tarantino."

Annie used her first seconds of eyes on the judge to assess this new contact in her life. Sixty maybe? Hair going to grey. Cut short to deal with receding hairline. Takes care of himself if his posture and face are any indication- Oh crap! He recognized me. How does he know me. I'm certain I've never seen him before.

She was already nervous, and it only got worse when he looked at her and said, "Anti-Terrorist Expert, FBI Special Agent Betty Lou Tarantino?"

Annie said, "Yes," with some trepidation.

The judge looked at the other two then back at Annie and said, "You used to be blonde, but it's definitely you. I presume Agents Burk and Rossabi are read in since they were named in the order I signed that legally justified your NOC as an FBI agent before you took down the cell in Philadelphia."

Annie was immensely relieved to learn that the judge knew about her through that court order and said, "Yes, your Honor. They know everything."

He said, "Do you mind if I call you Ms. Walker. It eliminates you lying to a Federal Judge."

"Please do, your Honor."

"Now that I know you are involved, this is making more sense. I'm not sure how much of the story behind this the CIA has shared with the FBI."

"All of it, your Honor. I spent five hours yesterday taking them through everything we know, everything we think, and everything we guess. We've held nothing back from the FBI, though Agent Rossabi was not privy to that briefing. Agent Burk and Agent Bell were."

He looked at Megan and said, "Agent Burk?"

"If there is anything she didn't tell us, it's only because it got lost in the incredible river of detail she related. If you had heard it, you would be certain she held nothing back."

The Judge looked satisfied and said, "Truthfully, based on her reputation, I'd expect nothing less." He turned to Annie and said, "Please don't hold back. I'm cleared for anything you know and a lot more. If you want this warrant, and I assume it's for you since Agent Rossabi only knows he wants it, but doesn't quite understand why it should be issued, I need enough supporting justification to make it a no-brainer to go after the Senate Intelligence Committee. That's a high bar."

"Your Honor, this warrant will enable the CIA Domestic Protection Division and the FBI to work together out of Langley, with the FBI as the lead agency, to find Henry Wilcox's hidden partner. However, it's not a five-minute story. Do you have time now?"

He smiled at her and said, "For the woman who left that traitor Henry Wilcox dead in a Hong Kong alley, I have all week. But, in the interest of efficiency, give me the elevator pitch, what evidence do you have that he has a partner?"

"I shot Henry in the alley in Hong Kong at about 3:00 p.m. Hong Kong time. A hired assassin attacked me twenty hours later when I boarded the CIA chartered plane on the Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa. It was impossible for Henry to have arranged that for obvious reasons. Because I am a target, the FBI agreed to run the investigation out of the CIA Domestic Protection Division. I'm the CIA lead; Agent Burk is the FBI lead. Agent Rossabi is our liaison to DC officialdom and the legal system. The object of the investigation is to identify and neutralize the co-conspirators and find any hitmen that have an open contract on me. Agents Burk and Bell are badged for unescorted entry into the CIA Domestic Protection Division to make that possible. "

"How did you get here?"

"Armored SUV wearing a full combat vest, that's still in the lobby, accompanied by a team of three Seals for protection."

"Wow. Had I known that, I'd have come to you." He paused for a second then said, "Moving on, that was a great elevator pitch. Please define neutralize."

This may come as a surprise based on what you know of my history, but we – I – would very much like to perp-walk Henry's surviving co-conspirators right into Federal Court. I'd like to sit in court and watch a trial that reveals their evil deeds in detail, a trial that humiliates them to tears. Then let them live out their lives in the Administrative Detention Facility at the Federal Prison in Florence, Colorado with no hope of parole. I also have a personal vested interest in taking the conspirators alive: I want to know who they have under contract to kill me."

"You're right; it is a bit of a surprise, but given how you handled Khalid Ansari, not that much of a surprise. The contract part also makes sense."

"Your honor, with all due respect, how do you know so much about me? I'm supposedly a quote Covert unquote CIA officer. The operative word is 'Covert.' I feel like I've been on the front page, or cocktail gossip, or worse."

"You are on the front page of every newspaper in the country; you just aren't named. Everybody knows somebody shot Henry. They just don't know who."

"That's not what I'm talking about."

He nodded at her, turned his head slightly to face them and said, "Agents Rossabi and Burk, would you give us a few minutes alone? The rest of this conversation will be above your clearance level."

Rossabi was taken aback but said, "Uh ... yes. Yes, of course, Your Honor. We'll be right outside."

"You might want to go to the Cafeteria. We'll probably be an hour or so."

While Burk stood to leave she said, "Yes, Your Honor." She laid her card on his desk and said, "If you need to contact me. I presume you have Agent Rossabi's number?"

"I do."

The door closed and the judge gave them a few minutes to walk away. "Miss Walker," he said, "it might interest you to know that in some elite circles you have a reputation as one of the eight to ten most deadly people on the planet – male or female." She started to rise out of her chair, but he said, "Please don't be upset. People, even in the inner circle, don't know your name. Word is out that the CIA has an elite female super spy. But, that's the end of what they know. Very, very few people know who it is; and if they do they aren't talking."

"That's not helping. If my ID gets on the front page, my career is over and I have hours, at the most days, to live. Witness Protection wouldn't work for more than a few days."

"I know. I'll tell you how I was able to connect the dots. Maybe that will help." When Annie nodded he said, "Early in my career I was an attorney with the Judge Advocate General's office, JAG, in what eventually became the Special Operations Command. I met Frank there. I've been to his range. I've shot there but only as a friend, never as a student. I saw the cottage you stay in when you are there. When I asked if I could stay there, he said it was reserved for his only female student and that she kept a lot of her stuff there, so it was locked and alarmed. Frank did not tell me your name, but given everything else I know, including a colonel that was in the restaurant in Carlisle, it was easy to connect the dots."

Apparently, he could see she was upset because he added, "I see a lot of classified data. I probably see more secrets than those actually in the various intelligence agencies because all the agencies come to me for warrants. I don't disclose what I know to anybody. I consider myself bound by the laws governing classified data. This communication is privileged so are my communications with other agencies. There are no recording devices in this room. As far as I'm concerned, if it isn't written, it never happened. I know who you are because I can see bits and pieces from across the intelligence spectrum that aren't available to anybody else. I'd appreciate it if you never share that story, but I told you so you'd know your Covert ID isn't blown."

"Thank you. Yes, I'm Frank's only female student, and I stay in that cottage. I wouldn't need to. I always train alone, but Frank knows I'm a covert officer, so he set it up for me, and I really appreciate it."

"Okay, now that we have that sorted out. I know you're not a lawyer, but give me the background in simple English. I'm particularly interested in the data or observations you have that support the warrant."

Annie thought for a few seconds and decided to tell him the truth. As a result she gave him an executive summary tour of the last year-and-a-half. It started with Henry in the restaurant where she saw Jai's car blow up, and it ended when she walked back into Langley five days earlier. The story of the hijacked CIA money that paid Goodman to shoot down the helicopter in Copenhagen gripped the judge's attention. His only reaction to her decision to go dark was a whispered, "Wow."

She glossed over how she ended up in the alley with Henry in her sights. Instead, she focused on the fact that there was no practical way to take him into custody and get him out of China. She had the drop on him, so she shot him.

The Judge didn't even blink at her confession. He apparently saw her hesitation because he said, "No worries, Ms. Walker. Some people need killing. He was one of them. But I'd stay out of China for a while, like the rest of your life."

Her background information talk took about half-an-hour. Then she offered a hypothesis about information passed under authorization to a sub-committee of the Intelligence committee as the only viable leak and her hypothesis about the EB-5 money and the data they had linking the shipments to Senator Pearson's attendance. Then she listed the four EB-5 companies run by Pearson's brother-in-law that were curiously aligned in timing. She was careful to say she had no evidence of them doing anything counter to the best interest of the United States, or even illegal, but she needed to look because there was clearly someone or some organization still functional that was trying to kill her, and she didn't think it was because of her hair color."

When she finished, his response was, "Thank you. That's more than enough justification. I'll sign the warrant, but I am broadening its scope. I will write in any phone calls, e-mails and databases related to the EB-5 program and supporting activities. In addition, I'll include all data, records in any media, property and reports of Lexington Global anywhere in the world. Full wiretaps and network intercepts from any Lexington facility worldwide are to be part of the search." He made the note on the warrant, initialed and signed it, made a quick copy on the machine behind him and handed the original to Annie. "Cover me by putting the story you just related in a document and have Rossabi bring it to me. Ms. Walker, put them out of business however you can.

"I'll take them down, Your Honor."

He looked at her for a long moment and said, "I believe you. I wouldn't want to be them. Okay, let 'em back in if they haven't gone home."

Annie chuckled and said, "They will be right out there, or what's left of them after wearing their skin out from the inside will be there."

The Judge laughed as well and said, "Good one," in an almost collegial tone.

# # #

11:00 AM Day 7, Leaving Judge Marks' Chambers:

When Rossabi and Burk were seated, the judge turned to Rossabi, then back to Annie and said, "Ms. Walker, if you need something related to this, come with Agent Rossabi or Agent Burk but don't hesitate to bring it. If you can't get here, I'll come to you. I'll expect to hear from you in the next day or so. This looks like one of those cases that's just about to explode. Here's my card, call the number on the back." Then he added, "Thank you very much for that concise and lucid presentation of a very complex story. In the words of my former colleagues, Bravo Zulu, Walker." Then, to the astonishment of all of them, he walked around his desk and offered his hand to Annie.

She stood, took it, and said, "My pleasure. Thank you, Your Honor."

"Thank you. Good luck." Then he turned and offered his hand to Agents Rossabi and Burk as he said, "And thank you as well. Both for your effort to catch these criminals but also for introducing me to Ms. Walker. It was a huge honor for me to meet her."

Rossabi was tongue-tied, but Agent Burk managed to say, "Thank you, Your Honor. You're welcome. We need to go put this warrant to good use." She turned and left through the door that Annie had already opened.

When the door was closed and they'd gotten down the hall a little distance, Rossabi said with a trace of panic in his voice, "Who has the warrant?"

Annie pulled the folded document out of her pocket, offered it to him, and said, "I do."

Rossabi took the offered document, verified it was signed and then said, "He added a bunch of scope - it's hand written. I'd never have asked for that. How did you get him to put it in?"

Annie said, "I didn't. He listened to my story and added it himself."

Rossabi just looked at her for a few seconds then said, "That whole session was a first for me. I've never shaken the hand of a FISA Judge before. I've never had one act like that. And never, ever, has one even considered adding to the warrant. What is it with you, Walker?"

Agent Burk just smiled and said, "It's what she does."

# # #

1:30 AM Day 7, Langley, Annie's Office and Team Room:

With the warrant in hand, Megan called Bill Cleary back in Philadelphia, and without giving him any background, asked him to provide them with a database of new business start-ups based on foreign investment via the EB-5 program. Bill's expertise was related to business and white-collar crime, so it was right up his alley. When he had isolated an interesting data set, he called Megan back and gave her the link to it. She logged into the FBI Philadelphia office, and Sarah, who'd been watching with interest, told her how to move the data out to a CIA cloud where she could bring it in and cross correlate it with her other searches and data sets.

About six hours of steady work later, things started to pop.

Megan said, "Of the most likely candidates, most are on the East Coast. Two are in Silicon Valley. One is a CIA contractor in Michigan."

Jo looked at the address for the Michigan company and said, "I know where that is. I thought it was an insurance company. Give me a minute." Before they could reply, she disappeared out of the office with her phone coming up to her ear. Annie looked at Sarah and grinned.

Megan said, "What?"

Annie said, "She forgot her phone won't work in here."

Sure enough, Jo was back in a few seconds and said, "I forgot."

Annie laughed and said, "Use the landline, but don't say anything you wouldn't want recorded. The whole conversation will be monitored in real time."

"Oh, well that's okay. I'm just going to call my Dad. He's lived up there all his life and done business in the area for forty years. I think he might either know the business that's there now or at least the history of the businesses in the building. If not, he can easily find out."

Annie chuckled and said, "I don't think that particular business is the most promising for our current purposes. It's a CIA contractor, but it might be worth some study by the FBI after we get whomever we are after now."

Jo said with a smile, "Unsub. We call them unsubs. Stands for unknown subjects."

Annie just rolled her eyes. Jo and Megan laughed. Megan commented, "Jo, I don't think we are going to convert her to a real FBI agent."

Annie said, "Don't be too sure. You guys get bulletproof vests with 'Good Guy' on them in big yellow letters. I tend to be wearing a blouse, holding a gun and doing a good imitation of a target. The blouse doesn't even stop spit. I could definitely like the good guy vest idea."

Annie saw Sarah looking at her and said, "What?"

"Nothing really. I just figured out who you are. You were the anonymous subject of an all day set of case studies in the last mandatory training we had to take about a week before Auggie wanted me to help him rescue you. You've been in something fifteen to eighteen gunfights, several hand-to-hand fights, and you are still alive. The only time you got shot you weren't armed. That is you, right?"

"So?"

"Please don't be offended, Annie. I had no intention of offending you in any way. They didn't even tell us the gender of the subject of the studies. It's just, you seem so normal, pretty much girl-next-door, but inside you are Lady of Ch'iao Kuo, a strong female leader and warrior. I admire that more than you can know. I read her story after I was adopted and raised by my Mom and Dad in Thousand Oaks, California."

"When were you adopted?"

"I was seven when I was adopted. China ended the program shortly thereafter. I was one of the last of my age, without a major birth defect, allowed to go. I was, of course, fluent in Chinese, Mandarin, and Cantonese actually, so I have that language as well as native, relatively un-accented English."

Annie smiled at her and then said in perfect Cantonese, "I too have read the story and the legend of Lady of Ch'iao Kuo and truly admire her accomplishments. I have done nothing to compare with that, though I share her commitment."

Sarah replied back, also in perfect Cantonese, "You share her spirit. You share her soul. And you speak perfect Cantonese complete with idioms and regional tone for Hong Kong."

Annie realized the whole room had gone dead quiet. Sarah noticed the silence too because she looked around and said, "What?"

Barber said, "I had no clue Annie spoke whatever sort of Chinese that was. I know she speaks Russian, German, Turkish, Arabic, Farsi, some Urdu, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, and some dialects of Serbo Croat, but not whatever that was."

Sarah replied to Barber, "She speaks perfect idiomatic Cantonese. First Westerner I've met who can do that and wasn't raised over there." Then she turned to Annie and asked, in English, "How many languages do you speak?"

"I'm level five, native, in six; get by in another dozen or so. Cantonese isn't one of my better languages, but I love it so I practice it sometimes."

Sarah just looked at her, said, "Wow. I suppose you can dance too?"

That got the room to laugh which relieved the tension. Annie said, "Sarah, let's ignore the business in Michigan for now and go after the two on the east coast, the one in Newbury Park, California, and the one at the research building in Thousand Oaks, California, that just started up a year ago. Newbury Park/Thousand Oaks, that's your backyard, right?"

Sarah said, "Conejo Valley. Yup, I can do that," turned and her fingers clattered on the keyboard with incredible speed and accuracy.

With that effort in good hands, Annie turned back to Barber and said, "How about you tackle the ones on the East Coast?"

# # #

6:30 PM, Day 7, Langley, Annie's Office and Team Room:

The rest of the day went well. There was a low level of background conversation, the sounds of a team functioning well and in synch. Then Sarah said, "I'm blocked. No access to the private business's financials. I either need a warrant so I can go through the front door or permission to hack my way in."

Barber said, "I've run into the same thing here. Shall we go for it?"

Jo said, "Annie, this is where I think you need to stop and go for another warrant that names all the likely companies as subjects and gives us permission to hack our way in if you want it to be admissible. If we go in the front door, there is a good chance we'll never see the real data. But I'd bet Sarah and Eric can find it if we can get them in legally. It's too late in the day now. However, we can e-mail Rossabi our justification and he can go to the judge in the morning. I think he can call now and get on the schedule. This is a high priority request. I can tag it as Director Level."

"Thanks Jo. Have Rossabi tell you when he's supposed to meet with the judge. If it's Judge Marks, I should probably go with him."

"Can do."

"Thanks. You got this. I'm going to take Auggie and call it a day. Thanks everybody. This has been a really good day."

There was a chorus of wishes for a good evening as Annie and Auggie left.

# # #

7:30 AM Day 8, Civilian Conference Room, Langley:

At Rossabi's request, Jo, Megan and Rossabi asked Calder to arrange a meeting in the civilian conference room. They had struggled into the night with what to put in the second warrant. They had gotten some boilerplate language from a Forensic Accountant at the FBI Philadelphia office but they weren't sure it was going to get them what they wanted. They had called it a night at 10 p.m. and agreed to an early morning meeting back in the same room at Langley so that Annie could join them.

After she read through the proposed warrant with a fresh rested brain, Jo said, "I know what's missing here; we need to include all records, meeting minutes, and internal accounting reports from any and all of the firms that audited these firm's books, and if they are a subdivision, related records in the parent of the auditing company. I'd bet the DHS and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services just accepted the auditor's certifications at face value, but it would be unlikely that the firm could truly hide money flow significant enough to be of value to a terrorist cell from their auditor. It's way more than petty cash amounts."

Megan looked up for a few seconds and then asked, "What makes you think that?"

"My Dad was an accountant. His firm specialized in auditing."

Dad said, 'It's all about money. It's always about money. Accounting firms are paid by the business they are auditing. Accounts are audit contracts. Those with big business are worth millions and highly prized. Lose one for your company and you need to update your resume. Most transgressions, simple errors and even major errors, are a small percentage of the business, so they can be covered, hidden. The client will often tell the auditing organization to bury it. And they do, for in their opinion, it doesn't affect the companies' investment quality. It requires collusion between audit firms and business's accountants. Auditing organization wants the fee; business wants to look good.

"He also said that the law that would convict an auditing firm is a rather tough bar to get over. One of his examples was the Enron/Arthur Anderson case. Arthur Anderson's conviction was over turned on a technicality related to jury instruction, but he said without that even though the employees destroyed some client data at management's direction, if it was within policy, without proving the policy was created to enable fraud, or management knew the data was fraudulent, it was going to be a tough sell. The prosecution knew that. Because of that, and the fact that the firm had been effectively destroyed by the case, the prosecution decided to let it go. But the lesson in it for accounting firms was that industry giant Arthur Anderson was basically put out of business by one high profile trial where they weren't found guilty.

"He also said that, in his opinion, without Anderson's cooperation the forty-billion dollar fraud could not have happened. He said the pressure placed on the auditors by high dollar accounts can be incredible. He also pointed out that in bigger businesses it is possible to hide large dollar diversions because they are small with respect to the company's books. The lesson for us is that while million bucks can buy a lot of terror, but it gets lost in a half billion dollar company. The numbers are there and can be found, but you have to be looking hard because they fall within the rounding error for companies with high business volume. Short of encountering the data in a random sample of raw transactions and recognizing what it is, it's invisible. But it's there in the detailed individual transactions, and a good auditor could find it. Hence, the auditor's cooperation is required. The auditor might not know where or for what the money was used; usually it is to line the pockets of some person or other.

"He told me that it's very hard to catch unless it's overt. He gave some examples that I won't go into here.

"So I think we need to add the auditing firms' records including all meeting minutes, recordings, videos, policy and procedure manuals, raw data files regardless of media, and formal reports. Without that we may not be able to find what we are looking for."

Sarah, who joined them with a laptop that had a secure connection back to the team servers, said, "You think the auditing firm might be complicit in the terrorism?"

Jo thought for a few seconds and then said, "I think that's unlikely. The auditing firm would know there was money being diverted or improperly accounted, and be able to trace or hide its impact on the firm's profitability and tax picture, but there is almost no chance they would have a clue it was for terrorism. Our biggest lever on the accounting firms is that Arthur Anderson was destroyed by a court case where they were later found to be not guilty, but they were destroyed anyway because nobody would trust them after that. Audit firms will be very anxious to avoid that happening. The specter of complicity in a high profile terrorism trial would have them willing to drop any client at the first inkling of the client's involvement in it. I think their best defense is to be completely up front with us. Unless there is evidence they are complicit in the terrorism plot, and with the precondition that they aren't involved in actions counter to the interest of the US, I'd offer them immunity, and they'd probably tell us everything they knew. If they didn't ,I'd start to check deeply into the back story of the firm's principals to see if there was a true-believer or home-grown lurking there."

Megan said, "Works for me." She used Rossabi's laptop because it was connected to the big display in the room, but wasn't wired into the network to quickly type out a paragraph for their review. When she had agreement, she looked around and asked, "We done?"

Annie, not being a lawyer, had no opinion, but all the lawyers in the room nodded, so she looked at Rossabi and said, "How about you return to your office, get this printed on proper stationary and we meet you at Judge Mark's office?"

Rossabi said, "Yes. Thanks guys. I'll let you know when our appointment is. This was a big help."

# # #

2:00 PM Day 10, Langley, Annie's Office and Team Room:

Warrant in hand, the team had been heavily involved in studying the purloined financial data including the four firms run by Senator Pearson's brother-in-law. It appeared those four firms might have gotten some favorable treatment due to some low key lobbying by the Senator, but they also appeared to be legitimate businesses. There was no hint of a connection to Lexington Global or terrorism. They discovered there had originally been seven businesses, but only the four that were successful had remained. The resident cards for those principals had been renewed, and they all employed fifteen or more employees, were making money and paid taxes. The audit reports had no 'except for' caveats in them, and data retrieved from the auditors under non-disclosure all passed muster with the Forensic Accountant at the FBI Philadelphia office, and the second one commissioned by Rossabi. These were not viable candidates.

What they had learned was that there were five other EB-5 businesses that were related to CIA money movements in terms of timing. They followed the movement by four months in all cases. E-mail data and, surprisingly, trade journal articles proved Senator Pearson had been instrumental in getting them into the program as well, but it looked like there was a lot of pressure on her from Lexington Global. The pressure came in the form of records found buried in the archives at Lexington Global of her late husband's early career business dealings. While they were buried, there was evidence that Henry, himself, had accessed them within the last year – possibly to use as leverage against Pearson.

The events in question had occurred twenty-five years earlier when her brother-in-law was scrambling to get his manufacturing business off the ground. Apparently, he'd given bribes to local politicians to get favorable incentives for locating his factory. The incentives weren't unusual, but the bribes to influence the incentives were. The statute of limitations had long since run out making prosecution for these charges against the few that were still living a non-starter, but the damage done to Senator Pearson if this leaked to news and social media would be substantial. Basically, she could kiss her political career goodbye.

The bribes were paid to her late father, deceased of natural causes, and a couple of his friends who had been on the state new business development commission at the time. The businesses involved also contributed significantly to Senator Pearson's early campaigns when she was running for state office. The evidence of them was found because the firm that audited the business had gone out of business when the proprietor died years later, but his family had stored the records along with other things of his. They weren't saving them for anything; they just hadn't thrown them out. They weren't digital, but with high-speed scanning technology, the records of interest were imported to the database in about twelve hours.

The business Henry bought, with funds they hadn't been able trace yet, to use as the core of Lexington Global was the business that had been given favored treatment by Senator Pearson. He didn't contribute directly but through the business into a Political Action Committee. When the auditing records were retrieved, it was clear the contributions were illegal and not properly accounted for in the business books. What was damming in all of it was that they had concrete evidence in the form of e-mails that showed Senator Pearson knew about not only the illegal contributions but also about Henry's plan for revenge. One e-mail from her indicated support for humiliating the CIA, however it was done.

Annie was shocked to see an e-mail from Senator Pearson to Henry that mentioned Joan. In it Senator Pearson made a barely veiled wish to have Joan assassinated because of the threat she represented. That had happened while Annie was in Geneva. They also knew Henry had tried, and nearly succeeded, in having Arthur killed, but there was, as expected, no evidence that tied Lexington Global to those failed hits. The bodies of the hitmen hadn't provided a lead either. They were local thugs and had apparently been contacted off the grid. Their computers, phones, credit cards and bank statements provided no clue to who had hired them.

After Jo had laid it all out in a short presentation on the big monitor, Burk said, "You'd think she'd have been exposed by her competition, but she ran unopposed in both her senate primaries and, essentially because of weak, underfunded opponents, in both her elections. There was a remarkable lack of media curiosity about her background. When I ask myself why she was unopposed, it wasn't from lack of opponents who were qualified and motivated, it was because her opponents dropped out of the race just about the time it would have gotten interesting. I think it's time to pay a visit to some of those dropouts. Annie, you up for a road trip?"

"Normally, I'd say yes, but in this case, I would prefer, for case integrity reasons, that you and Megan, or Megan and Rossabi, do it. Besides, there is nothing about it that requires my skill set or exposure to a potential hit man. The CIA isn't an investigative agency by charter. This is really the FBI's main cup of tea at this point." Annie paused; she'd suddenly remembered that she heard Joan had been visited in her office by Senator Pearson just before she was forced out of the DCS job and replaced by Braithwaite. She said, "I want to call Joan. I think she has some experience with Senator Pearson. Give me a minute."

She left the room and called Joan from a deserted lobby down the hall. Joan answered, "Hi, Annie. Give me a minute to get Baby Mac comfortable. I'm trying to feed him." Annie heard some baby sounds in the few second's wait until Joan came back on and said, "Okay, good for a couple of minutes, go."

"Senator Pearson visited you in your office shortly before you were forced out of the DCS position."

"Yes, that's right."

"What was the purpose of her visit?"

"I don't want to go into that on the phone, but if you were to come over, I'd be happy to tell you in some detail about Senator Pearson. If you decide to cross swords with her, look out. She has some powerful friends, and she's ruthless with regard to defending her position."

"You had a run in with her?"

"Lost a run in with her would be more accurate. She and the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee used Teo and Arthur to pressure the DCI when she demanded he move me out and Braithwaite in. I think there might have been some not so subtle hints about funding cuts."

"You were in the same room with the DCI when I came back and didn't claw his eyes out. In fact, you were civil to each other."

"He came to the house and personally apologized while you were on your way back from China. I'm convinced the DCI had no clue about Henry's traitorous actions. Henry painted a credible and plausible picture using selected data. One would hope a DCI would know better than to fall for that, but the DCI is almost never an intelligence professional, so they are vulnerable to master manipulators like Henry, and, unfortunately, to the master manipulator heads of some foreign intelligence agencies. The DNI is also political, so he's subject to pressure as well. That doesn't mean I condone what they did, but they did both admit their mistake, and the DNI went to some lengths to tell the DCI to stay out of your and Calder's way with regard to this joint FBI/CIA investigation. By the way, bringing the FBI into it was brilliant, Annie. I realize it was coincidental that they were from a very effective White Collar Crime office, but without them, we'd be on the end of the limb and sawing vigorously. With them in it, Pearson doesn't have a leg to stand on if she's been bad."

"Thanks, Joan. Jo and I are going to see her as soon as we can get an appointment. We're trying to write a second warrant now. When would be a good time for Jo and me to visit? I don't think we'll be there very long, but I really want the details of your encounter with Senator Pearson so we don't get blindsided."

"Baby Mac will be going down for his nap in about twenty minutes. Can you two get here by then?"

"There would be three of us. Chief Peters would be with us as well - he's my security team. He can wait in the living room watching TV or something. We can talk someplace else perhaps?"

"Sure. No problem. I certainly don't want to fill him in on all the dirty details of what went on. I'm not anxious to tell Agent Bell either, but if she agrees it's off the record, I'm okay with it."

"See you in half-an-hour."

Annie walked back into the room and said, "I am going to meet with Joan. She's had some interactions with the Senator. She'll fill me in." She focused on Jo and added, "I'd very much like you to go with me, but Joan insists the conversation is off the record."

Jo said, "I'll agree to that, but I hope she isn't going to reveal actionable treason, that's on the record. Period."

"Agreed."

"Okay, then to get the warrant?"

"Not sure yet. We might want to change it a bit after we talk to her." She turned to Barber and said, "Eric, will you have Peters pick us up at the usual gate in ten minutes?"

He looked up, smiled, and said, "Sure."

01/29/2014