Chapter 5
Posted: July 05, 2007 - 05:52:58 pm


Mike stepped out of the office after a slow day and looked around the parking lot trying to remember where he had parked his car. His boss, Dale Dawson, stepped out and stopped beside him. Pointing to the parking lot, he said, "I noticed this morning that I parked right next to your car."

"Oh," Mike said. He walked beside his boss towards a far end of the parking lot.

Dale said, "Did you know that there are four Internet Cafes between here and your new house?"

Mike almost stumbled on hearing the question. He looked over at Dale and answered, "No, I wasn't aware of that."

"Yes. There are four of them. One of them is owned by a Chinese gentleman. Nice fellow, but I don't care much for the place. It just doesn't feel very safe to me. I think it is the one nearest here that he owns if memory serves me correctly," Dale said glancing significantly at Mike.

"I'll keep that in mind," Mike said looking around.

"Do that," Dale said. He looked over at the Indian approaching them and said, "By the way, I understand that congratulations are due. I heard that you're having a baby."

"That's right," Mike answered finding the sudden shift in conversation jarring. He noticed the Indian walking behind them.

"Are you hoping for a girl or a boy?"

"I don't care. I'll be more than happy to raise a boy or a girl," Mike answered. It was true. He'd sit and have little imaginary tea parties with a daughter. He'd throw a ball with a son.

"I know what you mean. I've got two kids, a son and a daughter. They're in high school now. The boy is going to graduate this year. He's been accepted for West Point," Dale said with more than a little pride.

The Indian dropped back and got into a car. Although there wasn't a ring on Dale's finger, Mike asked, "Did you go to West Point?"

"Nope. I am a Marine," Dale answered. He looked around for a second before he said, "We have Marines because they can get the unpleasant jobs done."

"OohRah," Mike answered.

"Here's your car. See you tomorrow," Dale said walking on to his car. He looked over his shoulder and said, "By the way, did you hear that Donald Jones committed suicide the other night?"

Stunned, Mike answered, "No, I didn't."

Mike got into his car and buckled up. While starting the car, he decided that he'd keep an eye out for internet cafes on the way home. Two Marines had given him the same message; there had to be something significant there.

Leading Mike into his private office at home, Vince gestured to a leather chair and said, "Have a seat, Mike."

"Yes, sir," Mike said wondering what his father-in-law wanted to discuss. This wasn't the first time he'd been invited into the study, but it was a rare enough occurrence that he knew they'd be talking about something important.

The use of the word, 'sir, ' brought a smile to Vince's face. Waving him off, he said, "Relax. I just wanted to talk to you alone for a bit about work."

Mike settled into the leather chair. It was a very comfortable chair that fit in well with the very conservative looking office. Vincent didn't have much, but he always bought quality. The office reflected that dedication to quality. Solid wood furniture, leather chairs, brass lamps, and fine wood bookcases occupied the room. He asked, "Whose work? Yours or mine?"

"A little of both," Vincent answered cryptically.

"Okay," Mike said not quite sure what to make of that answer.

The older man took a seat behind his desk and looked at Mike long and hard. He cleared his throat before he said, "An FBI agent came to my office this morning and asked about you."

"I'm not surprised. They are doing some background checks on me. My new neighbor told me that they had been by our house asking about me," Mike said. His Top Secret Clearance had been reactivated after joining the CIA, but there were follow up investigations that would be performed.

"This particular individual used to serve on my ship. He's a Marine," Vincent said. He used the present tense in characterizing the agent as a Marine on purpose. Once a Marine, always a Marine was an unofficial motto of the Marines. He wasn't sure what was going on, but felt that his son-in-law could use a head's up about the situation.

"A Marine?" Mike asked feeling that he'd been encountering a lot of Marines lately.

"Yes. He wanted to know if I thought you were trustworthy," Vincent said. "It was a bit more than the typical FBI background questioning. He asked if I would trust you with my life."

Trying to relieve the tension, Mike jokingly said, "I hope you told him no."

Vincent chuckled and said, "I told him that I trusted you with my one and only little girl."

"Was he satisfied with your answer?"

"He knows how much I care about my daughter. Like I said, we served together on my ship," Vincent said. Leaning forward, he asked, "Is there anything going on that I should know about?"

Mike frowned and looked around. The curtains to the room were closed. Nodding his head, he answered, "No."

Vincent didn't know how to react to the mixed messages that Mike was sending him. Rather than follow up on it, he asked, "How's it going with the house?"

"It's going fine. I checked it out for termites before putting up the drywall and the house was clean. You know, those termites are sneaky little things. They come up from the ground and attack the wood. You never know they are there until you look for them," Mike answered.

Vincent's eyebrows rose when he realized what Mike was saying. He said, "Thanks for reminding me. We have a service that comes out once a year. They spray the basement to help keep out spiders. While they are here, they inspect for termite damage. You might consider hiring a service to do the same thing for your house."

"I planned on it," Mike said.

Karen and Mike drove up to their house ready for another day of hard work. They were surprised to find two cars already parked in front of the house. Mike said, "I guess Tim and his friend are here already."

"It looks like it," Karen said noticing that the door of the house was already open. She was pretty sure that she had locked it before leaving the other night. She frowned at the idea that Tim and some stranger invited themselves into the house. She growled and said, "What are they doing in our house?"

Hearing the anger in her voice, Mike turned to Karen. In a serious voice, he said, "Don't make an issue out of it."

"I don't like it that they went in without us being there," Karen said.

"Please, don't make an issue out of it," Mike repeated.

Surprised by his attitude, Karen turned to argue. The serious expression on his face brought her up short. Frowning, she asked, "What's going on?"

"I don't know, but I'm not going to do anything that could create a problem," he answered gesturing towards the house. He added, "They are Marines. Remember our motto, Semper Fi."

Karen knew that Semper Fidelis meant always faithful. It was used to convey that Marines were always faithful to duty and country even after leaving the service. Mike wouldn't use that if he didn't think he could trust them. She nodded her head and said, "I won't make a big deal out of it."

The couple entered the house to find Tim and a very large man examining the box containing the bathtub. Looking up at the couple, Tim said, "This is one heavy bastard. I'm not sure that three of us are going to be enough to carry it into the bathroom."

The big man kneeling beside Tim laughed and said, "I'll carry it."

Tim rose from a squat and said, "Mike, this here gentleman is Jack Lancer. He's my buddy from over at the NSA."

Extending a hand, Mike said, "Nice to meet you Jack."

"Good to meet you," Jack said with a friendly smile. His firm hand engulfed Mike's hand, but there wasn't enough force in the handshake to hurt.

"This is my wife, Karen," Mike said.

"It's a real honor to meet you, ma'am. I heard that you are the daughter of Captain Vincent Dougherty," Jack said without saying how he knew that little fact about her.

"That's right," Karen said looking at him with suspicion.

"I served with him back about twelve years ago. How's he doing?" Jack said.

"He's doing well. He's at the Pentagon," Karen answered. It wasn't the first time that someone who knew her relationship to her father had said that he had served with him. It seemed to her that everyone knew her father.

"He's a good man," Jack said as if his seal of approval was significant. He looked over at Mike and said, "You've got a good father-in-law."

"Yes, I do," Mike said.

"We had better get started on that bathroom. It's going to take all day to wrestle this bastard in there," Tim said.

Karen and Mike returned home exhausted from fixing up the bathroom. After a quick shower, they joined her parents at the dinner table. After loading their plates with food, Karen said, "Daddy, I met a guy by the name of Jack Lancer today."

Vincent sat back in surprise. He whistled and said, "Jack Lancer. Wow is that a blast from the past."

"So you know him?" Karen asked surprised by her father's reaction.

"Yes. He was stationed aboard my ship and I got to know him a little. I remember picking him up after one of his missions. I've never seen such a beat up bunch of Marines, but they took the hill, metaphorically speaking, thanks to him. He received the Congressional Medal of Honor," Vincent said. He didn't know what their mission had been, but when he'd seen that boat full of shot up men he had known it wasn't a stroll in the park. It was so bad that the boat sank even while they were unloading it.

Although he had worked with Jack all day, Mike was impressed by that fact. Smiling at his father-in-law, he said, "I guess that means that you salute him even if you outrank him."

"That's right and I'd be proud to do it," Vincent answered with a curt nod of his head.

Karen sat back in her chair and looked at Mike. In hind sight, it was good that he had insisted that she not make a scene over them entering the house. She wondered how he had known. Shaking her head, she said, "Semper Fi."

Vincent looked at his daughter and asked, "What was that?"

"Nothing. I was surrounded by Marines all day. It kind of rubs off on you," Karen said.

After church Sunday morning, Mike entered the house alone. Karen had dropped him off before heading out to the hardware store to pick up the tile for the bathroom. They wouldn't get to tiling the bathroom until the next weekend. He went into the bathroom and checked the work they had done the previous day. The bathtub was in place, but they'd have to wait until the tile was down to install the sink and toilet.

He went over to the bedroom to get his toolbox. Opening it, he checked out the contents. To his surprise, he found a USB drive sitting atop the tools. He picked it up and examined it. It was just a plain USB drive without any special markings on it. With a frown, he said, "That's odd."

He slipped the drive into his pocket and closed the toolbox. While carrying his tools to the bathroom, he considered what he was going to do with the USB drive. It was obvious that Tim or Jack had left it there for him to find. Although curious as to what was on it, he knew that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to run off to a computer right away.

He got out the laser level and started laying out the lines for the tile. The laser level made it very easy to perform that task. It took a quarter of the time that he thought it would take to scribe the lines on the wall. He was done well before Karen arrived home. Smiling, he said, "Isn't technology wonderful?"

There wasn't much else to do in the bathroom until the next weekend. It would take two days to do the tiling. He left the bathroom and went into the kitchen. That was the second room that required immediate attention. He stood in the middle of the kitchen trying to figure out what needed to be done first. Bathrooms were pretty simple compared to a kitchen.

He was still considering what to do when Karen came storming into the house. She threw her purse down on the floor and said, "Damn it!"

"What's the matter?" Mike asked knowing that when she got angry she had a tendency to swear.

"I'm tired of going to the store and finding that I can't speak to the sales person. I grew up in this country and now I can't go shopping because I don't speak a God Damned foreign language. Why can't they have someone who speaks English working in the store?" Karen said. She was furious.

Mike went over to calm her down. He didn't know whether it was normal anger or hormones from her pregnancy. It didn't matter, she was furious and it was up to him to deal with it. Hugging her, he asked, "What happened?"

"I'm at the hardware store looking at the tile. I finally catch one of the people who work there to help me. It is some Mexican who can't speak English. After spending five minutes trying to get across that I wanted ten cases of tile, the bastard walks off shouting, 'no comprende.' What in the hell is that? He's working in an American store as a salesperson and he can't fucking speak English," Karen said. She was waving her arms like the conductor of the Boston Pops.

"What happened next?" Mike asked afraid to learn the answer.

Karen frowned and crossed her arms. She said, "I grab another salesman who can't speak English. He says, 'no comprende' and walks off. I'm furious by this time. I walk around the store and find one person who can speak English. There's a line of twenty people waiting for him. The poor bastard is overwhelmed by a line of pissed off customers and four fucking Mexicans are standing around with their thumbs stuck up their asses laughing at him."

"That sucks," Mike said hoping that by agreeing with her that she'd calm down a little.

"I go to find the manager and he's a fucking Mexican. The smug bastard tells me that I should learn Spanish," Karen shouted.

Mike hugged his wife and said, "Calm down. We'll find another place to buy our supplies."

"This is wrong. This is my country and I can't even go to the store to buy things any more. This is Virginia, not Mexico. Why should I have to learn Spanish?" Karen asked with tears threatening to replace her anger. There was a very real sense of frustration in her question.

Mike wasn't about to tell her that she needed to learn four languages to function in her own country. It seemed like you had to know Hindi, Chinese, Spanish, and Arabic to get by anymore. He said, "Calm down. It's okay."

"There's something seriously wrong in this country," Karen said. She looked at Mike and said, "I think you're right. Something horrible is headed this way and we had better be ready for it."

Sanjay entered Mike's office with a sheet of paper in his hand. Clearing his throat, he said, "Excuse me for interrupting, but something rather unusual crossed my desk. It is my belief that you would want to know about it."

Looking up, Mike asked, "What is it?"

"A German company has ordered some very large capacitors. I don't know what capacitors of that size would be used for so I thought you might have an idea," Sanjay said. He handed Mike the piece of paper and said, "All of the details are written down upon this paper."

Mike glanced down at the paper and shook his head. Sanjay was right to be suspicious; there was something odd about the order. He said, "Thanks. You're right that this is odd. I don't know what it means, but I'll follow up on it."

"Good, I knew I could come to you," Sanjay said. He looked around for a second and then said, "I am very distressed about the news I heard concerning Donald Jones. I liked him. He was very honest."

"I didn't know you knew him," Mike said.

"There are many bad men around here, but Donald was one of the good men. I might not have always liked what he said, but I knew where he stood on important issues," Sanjay said. He frowned and said, "We had many discussions of the matter."

"I didn't really have a chance to know him," Mike said rather surprised by what Sanjay was saying. He didn't really trust Sanjay although the man hadn't done anything to deserve his distrust.

Sanjay stuck his head out of the office door and looked around. Leaning over to Mike, he whispered, "I think he was killed."

Surprised, Mike asked, "Why?"

"He had just gotten a very good job working for an independent consulting company. He had no reason to kill himself," Sanjay said.

"How do you know that?" Mike asked.

"Our families used to get together every other week for steaks grilled over our barbecues," Sanjay answered.

"I thought you were a Hindu," Mike said surprised by the revelation that Sanjay ate beef. His opinion of Sanjay was getting better by the minute.

Wobbling his head from side to side, Sanjay answered, "I am. I went to university in Atlanta and my roommate was a redneck. He told me that I had to start acting like an American if I wanted to be successful. He introduced me to the pleasures of barbecue. It was hard to eat beef the first time, but I found after a while that I like it."

"I'm surprised," Mike said.

"So was Donald," Sanjay said. Looking down at the floor, he added, "I'm going to miss our evenings together."

After Sanjay left, Mike sat back in his chair wondering about Donald Jones. The story that had circulated through the office was that Donald had killed himself, but he had never believed the story. Donald might have been stupid, but he wasn't crazy. The offense that had gotten him fired had been too trivial. Sanjay's story only confirmed what he believed.

Mike stopped at the Internet Café near his new house. The owner was a rather undistinguished looking man seated in a chair behind the counter. The man took one look at Mike and gestured him over to the front counter. When Mike stepped up to the counter, he could see the man had a tattoo with a huge bulldog standing over the initials U.S.M.C. The man said, "I've been expecting you, sir. That machine in the corner is free. You'll have a lot of privacy there."

"Thanks," Mike said not entirely surprised that he had been expected. He made his way over to the corner machine and dug the USB drive out of his pocket. He plugged it in. After opening the drive, he found there was one file titled click me. A minute later he was looking at a website.

The front page of the website had the title, "Semper Fidelis." Under the title was a caption that said, "Serving our country in a time of need." In the middle of the page was a link with the simple words, 'Answer The Call.' Wondering what he was going to find, he clicked on the link. With wide eyes he read,

"Congratulations. You have been invited to have unrestricted access to the largest collection of intelligence material and analyst reports concerning threats to the United States of America in existence. The price of access to this website is that you are required to protect the United States from those who mean it harm. If you agree to these terms, click on accept. If you do not agree to these terms, click on reject. Should you reject this offer, all records of this invitation will be destroyed and future access will be denied."

Mike sat back in his chair staring at the screen trying to decide how to answer. A moment of thought convinced him that there was only one answer that made sense. If it was illegal, then he'd have to answer that he accepted so that he would have access in order to report it. If it was legitimate, he didn't have anything to lose.

He moved the mouse over the accept button and clicked. Immediately a new screen appeared that identified him as CIA023. He had to assume from the user name assigned him that he was the twenty-third agent from the CIA to be granted access to that site. He was asked to provide a password for future access.

The basic layout of the webpage was simple. Arranged in three columns was a list of topic areas that he could examine. One of the topic areas that immediately caught his eye was the list of known double agents. Thinking about what he had observed within the CIA, he clicked the link.

The page that following the link produced was titled, "Known Double Agents by Agency." Stunned he stared at the list of names presented on the page. Every government agency that he could think of was represented on that page. Even the Department of Agriculture was listed with four double agents identified under it.

He scrolled down to the listing for the CIA. He was staggered by the number of individuals who appeared in that list. He was not entirely surprised when he found a listing for Peter Chang. He clicked on the link by the name and a fact sheet on Chang appeared. Open mouthed he read the background on Chang. The man was a middle level operator in the Chinese Ministry of State Security; the Chinese version of the CIA. He read the footnote that Chang occasionally served as an assassin.

One of the deaths attributed to Chang was that of Donald Jones along with three other former intelligence agents. According to the story, Donald Jones had been collecting information on the Muslim Brotherhood as an outside activity and had been caught. The Chinese Government had agreed to take care of the matter in exchange for a hundred million dollars worth of oil. The oil was delivered through all twelve of the OPEC nations.

He returned to the previous page and read the rest of the names of agents within the CIA. None of the names there surprised him. He noticed that three of the five people who sat on the tribunal that had dismissed Donald Jones were on the list. He had suspected as much. He wasn't surprised to find that Sanjay's name did not appear on the list.

He did notice that the affiliation for all of the Muslims was under a common heading, the Muslim Brotherhood. Clicking on the link brought up a page that described the organization. Expecting a short paragraph, he was shocked to see that the table of contents was huge. A chill went down his spine when he looked over the section headings.

He clicked on the executive summary and read it. The upshot of the overview was that there were two faces to the Muslim Brotherhood. The public face was that it was a world-wide Sufi- Sunni Islamist movement founded back in 1932 in response to the westerners living in Cairo. The secret face was that it wasn't a Sunni or a Shiite organization, but a pure Sufi Muslim Organization. The Sufi isn't a separate branch of Islam, but spans both Sunni and Shiite sects.

Reading further, he saw that they had plans on how to allocate the world among the different Islamic factions. According to the summary, every major Muslim terrorist organization was actually a chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood. The public differences between the terrorist organizations were established as a means of recruiting different groups of individuals to serve the overall purpose of destroying the west and returning to a Muslim controlled world.

Disturbed by what he had read, he went back to the page of known double agents. Under the Department of Energy was another name that he recognized. He clicked on it and read the biography for the man. The man was a high level director in charge of high energy weapon development while being affiliated with the Chinese government. The comment was that he wasn't very effective since almost every project he had started had been canceled. The individual who had written the article assumed that it was an intentional act to keep the American program behind the Chinese.

All of the evidence that Mike had been accumulating suddenly made sense. The director had been initiating research projects for the past eight years. In each case, the principle investigator was a former Chinese national. Whenever one of the projects was close to a breakthrough, the project was canceled and restarted in China. The man wasn't keeping the American Programs behind the Chinese. He was using American taxpayer money to fund the Chinese research.

Mike was lost in the web pages when the screen suddenly flickered and showed two women having sex with each other. Surprised, he looked up and found a rather embarrassed young woman standing beside him. She said, "Excuse me, sir. If you're going to use this place for so long, you need to order something."

"I'll have a coffee," Mike said still staring at the screen. He looked away from the screen and watched the young woman walk off. When he turned back, the lesbian picture was gone and the page he had been reading had returned. He was impressed by that feature.

He waited for the young woman to return with his coffee knowing that he was going to get a reputation as a dirty old man. That was better than getting caught with what was clearly illegal access to intelligence data. He thought about how Chang would react catching him here looking at porn. The man would use that to try and control him. If he found him reading the intelligence date, Chang would try to kill him.

It was late when Mike returned home. Karen met him at the door with a worried expression on her face. Before he had even closed the door, she asked, "Where were you?"

"I had to do a little work," Mike said in a quiet voice. He stepped around his wife still lost in his thoughts. The time spent at the computer had been a major revelation. He had found an article by FBI011 that provided background information on foreign scientists working in the United States. It was a very disturbing report.

"What kind of work?"

"Protecting the country kind of work," Mike answered. It was a common phrase in that house. Karen's father used that phrase when his wife started asking questions about topics that he couldn't discuss.

Nodding her head, Karen said, "I understand. Just warn me next time."

"Thanks. I really can't talk about it," Mike said.

"Have you eaten?"

"No," Mike answered. He looked down at himself. He had stopped at the Internet Café on the way home from work and was still wearing his business casual attire. He added, "I better change into something a little more comfortable."

"Good idea. I'll warm up a plate for you while you're changing," Karen said.

"Thanks," Mike said heading down the hallway.

Karen watched him go with a worried expression on her face. Mike hadn't even kissed her on arriving home. She'd never seen him look so distracted. She'd seen her father come home at times with a similar expression on his face. Usually that meant something pretty bad was about to happen. The last time she'd seen her father with that expression, there had been a war start within twenty-four hours.

Mike returned to the living room after twenty minutes. Karen was waiting for him and said, "I've got your dinner in the dining room."

"Thanks, you're an angel," Mike said. He went over to her and gave her a kiss.

"It's about time you remembered to do that," Karen said with a smile. She decided that tonight she might want to wear her French Maid costume to take his mind off his problems. She tried to remember if there was a feather duster in the house.
Lazlo Zalezac
Chapter 6