The Merchant of Secrets by Caroline Lowther Read Free Book Online

arrive.”
    “I’ll be in later this afternoon, I have a meeting first”
I replied, as a delay tactic to give me time to think.  
     
    “Okay but hurry-in, this office gets pretty lonely
without you,” Colin replied.
     
    Todd is the manager of Special Security for the company.
The blue- print of his face is firmly imprinted on my mind and could have
caused endless nightmares if I had allowed myself to wonder what services he
provides for the company. He was a phantom-like figure who could strike fear in
people just by walking down their hallway; reviled by everyone including our
Deputy Director, Michael Mulally . I had entered a Top
Secret database without proper authorization and Todd had gotten wind of it and
was after me, but that did little to clarify who was in the surveillance car
with the tinted windows.  
     
    The traffic light changed to green. I pushed my foot on
the accelerator, thrusting the car forward, and barreled unselfconsciously
through the cars in front of me, zig-zagging , lane-to
lane on the way to the capital beltway which surrounds Washington D.C. and the
nearby suburbs in Maryland and Virginia. The other car sped-up behind me,
keeping pace with all my moves.  Changing tactic, I slammed on the brakes,
and aimed my vehicle over the grass covered island separating northbound and
southbound traffic, and into the stream of cars heading southbound in the direction
of Langley.
     
    My heart was pounding heavily in my chest. Struggling to
get air and dissolving into a state of panic, I became light- headed and was on
the verge of passing out while the sounds of traffic all around were loudly
telling me to pull off the road. By yanking the steering wheel to the right I
forced the car to make a hard right turn onto a side street, and then I slammed
the brake pedal to the floor and shifted gear to “park”.  I turned on the
CD player, jammed in a CD and closed my eyes to drift off to the sound of
Bach’s second violin concerto to relax. My hands had cramped- up from lack of
oxygen as if rigor mortis had set–in.  After a few minutes I was able to
regain control. My hands un-cramped and my racing heart rate retreated. When
oxygen again flowed freely to my lungs I switched gears, turned the car around,
and headed away from the office.
     
    Fending off an assault from the manager of “Special
Security” was not to be taken lightly and options had to be weighed, the most
obvious of which was to hire a criminal defense attorney to make Todd back-off,
but at about six hundred dollars per hour, that was way out of reach for what
someone on my salary could afford.  The next option was to move the
project out of his jurisdiction, out of his area of responsibility, where he
wouldn’t have the legal authority to pursue me.
     
    Bailey worked at the Internal Revenue Service Criminal
Division. We had met each other at a joint training session in Florida 
where agents from different services are brought together to fuse the talents
of different departments, avoiding the gaps in information sharing that some
say led to the 9-11 attacks. She might consider joining  
a nascent investigation into Adnan Qureshi based on the flow of money and his physical presence here in the U.S..
 Our   company operated under the rules and
regulations of the Department of Homeland Security, Bailey’s operated under the
Treasury Department; a completely different world and most importantly, out of
Todd’s reach.  
     
    Bailey was about 40 years old, five foot six, and 125
pounds with gorgeous long brown hair and large brown eyes. She exuded an
attractiveness that comes from the combination of feminine beauty and physical
strength and was in complete control of her seductive power over men. She had a
child-size waist and roundness in just the right places, and could have
launched a career as a super model in her twenties, but ended up doing this
instead. Working-out gave her the body and the confidence to wear tight