First Daughter - Eric van Lustbader [52]
"I will," Jack said. "I call him on an hourly basis, anyway."
"One of these days I trust you'll surprise me, Jack." Garner tossed aside Schiltz's chilling report. "But, no, I need you with me, so, Nina, it'll be you who provides the Carsons with this morning's update."
Nothing on Nina's face betrayed what she might be feeling. She was dressed today in a smart suit over a blouse with pearl buttons up to her neck, where a tasteful cameo was pinned. How a woman could appear demure and sexy at the same time was beyond Jack.
They were grouped around a desk in the makeshift command center at Langley Fields. The desk was littered with the day's early dispatches from the FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA, as well as every regional and municipal law enforcement agency that had been dragooned by Homeland Security into the search for Alli Carson.
The trio was the eye of a carefully controlled storm of activity that raged around them. No less than thirty operatives were crammed into the headmistress's outer office, working the computers that were hooked into the nation's deepest surveillance networks. Many were simultaneously on the phone, distributing phoned-in leads that other operatives in the field needed to run down. Bags from McDonald's, KFC, barbecue joints, along with half-empty boxes of subgum chow mein and moo goo gai pan were strewn about. Garbage cans were piled high with empty soda cans. The greasy odors of stale food, sweat, and fear made a permanent fug impossible to escape.
One of these drones had accessed the national missing persons database for the entire District, Virginia, and Maryland, but the printout was useless. Save for the usual slew of runaways from Omaha to Amarillo who had disappeared into the bowels of the District, there was nothing to help them.
"Let's get to work," Garner said to Jack as Nina left them.
He led Jack out via the rear exit that gave out onto a dimly lit corridor, down a short flight of concrete steps to the custodian's area. Here was a warren of workshops and storerooms containing all the many implements and supplies required to keep an upper-tier college like Langley Fields looking shipshape for the parents who paid tens of thousands for the education of their sons and daughters. No fine school could afford to look shabby, and with a large campus like this one, the maintenance was constant.
Clearly, however, the custodial staff was elsewhere because when Garner led Jack into the largest of the workshops, it was deserted, save for two hooded men and their armed guards. They were sitting on opposite sides of the room, facing away from each other. Between them, along the wall, was an oversized soapstone sink and several workbenches above which hung pegboards thick with handsaws, hammers, awls, levels, metal rulers, and planes. Screwdrivers, chisels, pliers, and wrenches of every imaginable size were clustered in one area. Some of the benches had vises bolted to them. The smells of glue and oiled metal were strong in the air. Between the pegboard sections were windows that afforded a peaceful view out over the rose garden, now an army of thorny miniature stick soldiers on a half-frozen parade ground.
"What is this?" Jack said, alarmed.
Garner pulled him back into the hallway for a moment.
"We've brought in the co-leaders of the First American Secular Revivalists," he said in a low voice. "A number of FASR members have vanished, only to resurface as part of E-Two. At the very least, FASR is a training ground for E-Two terrorists. In our estimation, it's a legit front for the revolutionary group."
"Brought in? Are these men criminals?"
Ignoring Jack's question, Garner concluded: "Keep your mouth shut, bright boy, and you just might learn something."