Black Flagged (The Black Flagged Technothriller Series) by Steven Konkoly Read Free Book Online Page B

the house.
    The reporter identified the deceased as Mohammed Ghani, an importer with offices in Portland and Boston. Police were withholding details, but an anonymous source reported that Ghani had been stabbed to death outside of his home. Another source confirmed the presence of federal agents at the crime scene, but Portland's FBI office had refused to comment. Daniel decided to change the subject.
    "Hey, are you going out for drinks with the ladies tonight? I could meet you for dinner after."
    "That would be nice. We can grab sushi at Sakura's. It's right across the street from The Lounge," she said, turning to face him.
    "Ah…The Lounge. Where all the young ladies gather to sip cosmos…"
    "And all the men stand around watching them," she added.
    "I can't wait to pluck you out of there, right in front of all those desperate guys. Can we pretend we don't know each other?"
    "I can't guarantee the behavior of the women in my office, so it's probably not a good idea. Sounds fun though," she said and kissed him.
    "The betrothed members of the crew usually start heading home around eight, so meet me any time after that."
    "I can't wait," he whispered and kissed her passionately.
     
     

 
    Chapter Five
     
     
     
    7:14 a.m.
    CIA Headquarters, McLean, Virginia
     
    Randy Keller strode casually down a crowded corridor in the National Clandestine Service's wing of the Central Intelligence Agency's headquarters building. At seven in the morning, the Counterterrorism Center's section was quiet; most of the analysts and staff were sitting in sluggish traffic, still thirty to sixty minutes away from the CIA's sprawling McLean, Virginia, campus. In about thirty minutes, the place was going to explode, and he would prefer to be back on the road when it did. He just needed to get the required "face-to-face" check-in out of the way, then he would be free to cruise back to his liaison office at FBI headquarters, where he imagined he would be sleeping for the next week, until they figured out exactly what had happened to Task Force HYDRA.
    He reached the end of the corridor and paused at a door that read "Karl Berg, Assistant Director, Counterterrorism." He knocked and waited.
    "Come in," he heard someone yell.
    He scanned the room as he stepped inside and was surprised to find both Karl Berg and Audra Bauer, director of the Counterterrorism Center, sitting around a small spare computer workstation next to Berg's desk. They both glanced at him as he hesitantly entered. He hadn't expected to make a report directly to the CTC's director.
    "Grab a seat, Randy. The director and I just finished with the latest feed from the FBI. This link is fantastic work."
    "Thank you. You're seeing what they feed out to their on-scene agents and key section heads. They add agents to the feed as they are brought into the investigation. It keeps everyone in the loop and on the same page, but it's not always the fullest picture," he said.
    "And that's exactly why we have you over there. I've read your summaries of this morning's events. I agree that the FBI had been compromised. Please have a seat," said Bauer.
    Keller turned a chair to face them and sat down. He glanced at the window and wondered if they were really designed to resist electronic listening devices. In over fifteen years at the CIA, this had never been a concern for Keller, since he had never sat behind a desk in a room with a window. His office at the FBI was the closest he'd ever achieved, located across the hall from the coveted window offices.
    "Do you have any ideas about where to start looking?" said Bauer.
    "Ma'am, it's difficult to say. They don't compartmentalize their operations like we do here. This is one of their highest priority investigative task forces, but they still have no organic support assets. The core team is permanently assigned to HYDRA and is comprised of mostly Terror Financing personnel, but they rely on key players in nearly every other section for critical, daily