“Take it down,” ordered Bogart.
The portable ram was brought up and it slammed against the doors, bursting them open. The agents poured through.
It was an enormous house with lots of places to hide. But they didn’t have to look very hard.
The library was a beautiful room, book-lined with a marble mantel topping a mammoth blackened fireplace. An ornate writing desk was set in the middle, a high-backed leather chair situated at the kneehole. There was a black leather sofa against one wall and two wing chairs on the other side of a wood and wrought iron metal coffee table that had probably set the owners back five figures.
Not that they cared anymore.
The man was in one of the chairs. The woman was sprawled across the couch. They each bore the blackened tag of a bullet entry smack in the middle of their foreheads.
“Alfred and Julia Gorski,” said Bogart.
“They’re taking care of loose ends,” opined Milligan.
Bogart said, “We need to search this place from top to bottom
.”
“I’ll call in the tag-and-bag team,” said Milligan. He pulled out his phone and moved over to a far corner of the room.
Bogart looked at Decker. “So they used this dying kid as a means to pass classified material?”
Decker nodded. “They knew Joey was dying. That’s why they picked him to ‘adopt.’ They never had any intention of doing that. They brought him to Dominion Hospice. And that’s why Berkshire started going there. It was a perfect cover to pass the secrets. I mean, who would have suspected? We discovered that Jenkins got the job as the night manager when the woman who’d originally held the position didn’t show up for work. I wonder when they’ll find her body?”
“Damn. This thing just keeps expanding,” exclaimed Bogart, rubbing the back of his neck.
“So does the universe,” replied Decker.
A voice said, “But the good news is we’re dismantling their spy operation by default. They’ve now lost four operatives and counting.”
They turned to see Harper Brown standing in the doorway.
She came forward and looked down at the couple.
“You know them?” said Bogart.
“I know of them. The Gorskis host charity balls, cut ribbons on hospital wings, throw great parties, one of which the head of my agency has attended.”
“What’s their background?” asked Bogart.
“They were immigrants. From Poland. Built a huge import-export company.”
“I guess we know what they were importing and exporting now,” said Jamison.
“I’m surprised if they’re so prominent that they didn’t get negative publicity for what they did with Joey,” said Bogart. “I mean not adopting him.”
Brown said, “That’s why you have PR people. And they were paying for his stay at hospice. No one’s going to ding them after that, if anyone really even knew about it. They’ve funded construction of a new at-risk youth facility in Southeast. No one’s going to hold one kid against them, as awful as that sounds.”
“I wonder how the PR folks will spin their being spies,” snapped Jamison.
Bogart said to Brown, “How did you end up here?”
Brown looked at Jamison. “Alex called me and told me. I appreciate the heads-up.”
“You’re welcome,” said Jamison as Decker gave her a curious glance.
“Do you have any idea who the Gorskis could have been working for?” said Bogart.
“Obvious suspects are the Russians, of course. But you can’t rule out the Chinese, the North Koreans, or some of the players in the Middle East.”
“Syria and Libya.”
“Does that help us take some players out of the equation?” said Decker.
“Thirty years ago, it might have, but Russia is so heavily invested in the Middle East’s geopolitical equation that they could be behind it. Putin is ruthless and he has firmly in mind a plan to make Mother Russia a global player once more. And to do that he needs influence everywhere, particularly in the desert. And we can’t rule out China either, because they have similar goals. All you need is to see what they’re doing in the South China Sea to understand that. And both countries are beefing up their military capabilities. And then you have Un in North Korea as a wild card who’s determined to build a nuke that can reach the West Coast.”
“Sounds like Doomsday is coming sooner rather than later,” said Jamison in a resigned voice.
“Unless we can knock out spy operations like this, I wouldn’t make any retirement plans,” said Brown. “They might prove unnecessary,” she added ominously.