The Payback - Mike Lawson

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don’t know anything about Phil Carmody,’ Emma said and her lips compressed into a stubborn line that said they soon would.

      ‘Hell, even if they are spies, according to that tall gal up in the training area, what’s-her-name, Shipley, it’d be pretty hard to sneak anything classified out of that place. You sure as hell can’t sneak one of those big damn books out of that vault.’

      ‘I know,’ Emma said.

      They sat in silence a moment until DeMarco said, ‘If all those security systems don’t keep the spies out, how do they get ’em?’

      ‘The first opportunity,’ Emma said, ‘is the background checks performed when they issue a man or a woman a security clearance. That’s the time to see if they’re in financial trouble or susceptible to blackmail. But that’s not how spies are usually caught.’ Emma gestured toward the shipyard, the eastern end of which was visible from the teahouse. ‘All that security – the fences, the cameras, the safes, the cyber locks – that’s the physical perimeter that protects the facility and its secrets. But there’s a second perimeter that’s just as visible but not as apparent – a human perimeter. The employees. Employees like Dave Whitfield watching their coworkers, looking for odd behavior, looking for something that stinks, as poor Dave put it. It’s the second perimeter that catches the spies.’

      Emma tipped her cup back and swallowed the remainder of her horrible, healthy tea. ‘There’s somebody I need to talk to,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you later.’

       15

      ‘I need some help here, Bill,’ Emma said.

      Bill Smith – his real name – worked for Emma’s old outfit. He was five foot nine, slim, had curly dark hair, and wore glasses with heavy black frames. He didn’t look like an international spy; he looked, to his great dismay, very much like the older brother of a guy who did a national TV commercial, one that had been running for more than three years. He and Emma were sitting in a Denny’s restaurant and Emma winced as Smith poured half a pint of raspberry syrup over his waffles.

      ‘I can’t do it, Emma,’ Smith said. ‘We’re more shorthanded right now than we were during the cold war.’ Before Emma could object, he held out a forkful of waffle, red syrup running down the handle of the fork. ‘Wanna bite?’ he said.

      ‘God, no,’ Emma said. ‘I’m telling you, Bill, these guys are up to something. I can feel it.’

      ‘Have you talked to the Feebies about this feeling of yours?’

      ‘Yes. The Bureau assigned two young agents to Whitfield’s murder. The one in charge is not only greener than grass, he’s handling a caseload that would break a donkey’s back. He thinks the likelihood of espionage is pretty far-fetched …’

      ‘Which you have to agree it is,’ Smith said.

      ‘… and he says he doesn’t have sufficient probable cause to get warrants to look into these guys’ finances or search their homes.’

      ‘Probable cause,’ Smith said and made a sound that was half snort, half laugh. In Bill Smith’s normal line of work, probable cause was rarely, if ever, an impediment.

      ‘And as for Whitfield’s murder, he says they’re starting to think that poor schizophrenic really did it.’

      ‘Well maybe he did do it.’

      ‘He didn’t,’ Emma said. Emma, as the old saying went, was sometimes wrong but never uncertain.

      ‘So what do you want?’ Smith said.

      ‘I want someone from research to check these people out, particularly Carmody. And I want to borrow a computer guy to tell me how they could trick the shipyard’s IT security. And I need a team, just a small one. I want these guys followed for a while and their houses searched. I particularly want Carmody’s place sniffed for explosives and spyware.’

      ‘Jesus Christ, Emma. Maybe you’d like a helicopter, too?’

      ‘I’m serious, Bill. It really makes me nervous that he spends his time on board the ships.’

      Smith sighed. Emma was a force of nature. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘the research we can do. You just won’t get priority. The computer stuff, there’s an NSA guy we borrow sometimes when we’re overloaded. Maybe we can convince them to spare him for a conference call. But a team’s out of the question. I’d have to bring guys back from overseas to do what you want. You gotta believe me, Emma: communism was a piece of cake compared to this terrorism stuff.’

      ‘Listen to me,’ Emma said. ‘They’re inside a naval shipyard that overhauls nuclear-powered warships!’

      ‘I hear you, Emma, but I can’t do it. Sorry.’

      Emma sat back in her chair.

      ‘Well in that case, Bill, I’d suggest that you kick this up the line so that when something bad happens, your ass will be covered.’

      ‘Now that wasn’t called for, Emma.’

       16

      Emma reclined on the bed in her motel room, waiting for the phone to ring. She was feeling lonely and grumpy. After Christine went back to D.C. with the symphony, Emma had moved into the same motel where DeMarco was staying in Bremerton. It was clean and functional and conveniently located – and, in Emma’s opinion, only slightly better than a cardboard box. Emma was used to five-star accommodations.

      Emma had worked for the DIA for almost thirty years. She never discussed with anyone what she did while working for the agency but in her time she had slept in mountain caves without even a blanket for warmth; she had survived by eating grubs and uncooked bitter roots; she had been bitten on the ear by a scorpion and had once acquired an exotic fungus between her toes. She had suffered these hardships without complaint or self-pity – yet here she was feeling extremely peeved because the water pressure in the motel’s shower was so low it took five minutes to rinse the shampoo from her short hair.

      The phone next to the bed rang.

      ‘Yes,’ Emma said.

      ‘It’s Peterson in research.’

      ‘Go ahead.’

      ‘I’ll start with Norton and Mulherin. They have a history of indebtedness. Their employment records are spotty – lots of supervisor comments about tardiness, insubordination, sloppy work, etc. Before they retired they filed grievances every other month about something: lack of promotion, age discrimination, unfair shift assignments. That sorta whiny crap. Both are divorced and both have kids they don’t support. Neither has a criminal record, unless you count the DUI Mulherin got six years ago. They’re just a couple of fuckups.’

      Just a couple of fuckups. That seemed to be the consensus opinion as that was at least the third time that Emma had heard that phrase, or a variation of it, used to describe the pair. So why had Carmody hired them?

      ‘Is that it?’ Emma said.

      ‘No. I checked their bank records. Six months ago both men came into some money, a hundred thousand dollars each. This was just before they retired from the yard and started working for Carmody.’

      ‘What was the source of the hundred thousand?’

      ‘Carmody’s company. I guess it was some kind of signing bonus.’

      Emma snorted. ‘Would you pay these two a signing bonus?’

      ‘I don’t think so.’

      ‘And where did Carmody get the money from?’

      ‘He

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