is. We still don’t know who the leader, the architect of this plan was. You have to give it to him; it was a great plan. It almost worked. It took Robert’s solid conscience combined with sheer luck to get us to find out this much about them and reclaim the integrity of our elections process.” She stopped talking, deep in thought, her fork stuck in mid-air.
“We got lucky this time, but let’s face it,” she continued, “this X has thought up a plan that has greatness in it, boldness. He has some serious cojones, this guy. X is smart, calculated, a brilliant orchestrator able to forge a global game of immense reach with laser precision. It bothers me that he’s still out there, planning his next move. We think we won, but in fact, the devil’s move is next. The game is still on, and it will be on until we catch X, or whatever we want to call him. And what exactly do we know about him?”
“We do know a little more than before. We know for sure he’s Russian, and his nickname is V, or his initial. We know last time they met in Greece, somewhere within a half hour by chopper from Thessaloniki. That’s the extent of what we know, unfortunately,” Sam said.
“Not nearly enough to call the case done,” Alex said bitterly. “I know you said that some of these cases take a long time to really close, but I’m not a spy, Sam, I don’t have your patience. I want the bastard to hang now. I wanna know who he is. I wanna look him straight in the eye while we take him down.”
“Spies aren’t patient by choice, kiddo. They’re patient by need. This is the game we have to play. It’s covert, all smoke and mirrors, and you have to wait, wait like a spider who weaves its web and waits. Sooner or later it will work if the web is woven well. We’re working on that, right, kiddo? So take it easy, ‘cause this anger I sense brewing inside you will only get you to screw up. Only a cool-headed agent is able to interpret information accurately. A hot-headed, frustrated one will get emotional and then get killed.”
“I’m not an agent,” Alex said, and to her own surprise, with sadness in her voice. “I am not spy material.”
“Yes you are,” Sam countered, “and a pretty darn good one. If I weren’t retired I’d try to recruit you for the CIA right now.”
“Don’t you dare,” Tom said, “she’s all mine.”
Steve chuckled.
“Sorry, Sam,” Alex joked. “Tom pays way better than the government.”
They all burst into laughter.
“Alex,” Robert said as soon as the laughter subsided a little, “you might not be happy with the outcome of this case, but you protected us, my wife and I, and we’re both very grateful to all of you. You and your terrific team saved our lives.”
Alex nodded, accepting the compliment, but her bitterness remained. “Helms is still out there, chased by the Israelis. Your lives might still be at risk. Robert, be very careful. Helms is still in the wind, so even that’s not closed yet. And we might still go to jail over this, at some point in our lives, you know.”
“Sure, but something tells me we won’t,” Sam reassured her. “This is not how such things are handled. No one wants this kind of story to make it out to the public, so they wouldn’t risk it at this point, even if they somehow learned about it. It would make the responsible agencies seem like they’re asleep at the wheel, right? No one has any interest whatsoever in blowing this thing wide open now, or at any time in the future. Plus, we did nail us some pretty big terrorists, right? That should buy us some slack with law enforcement agencies.”
Louie nodded vigorously. “Yep, yep,” he whispered.
“I agree,” Steve said his first words in the entire evening.
“Well, I might have to disagree, unfortunately,” Robert said. “I had to inform by boss and main shareholder of DCBI, Eddie Campbell. A few days ago, I brought him up to speed and offered my resignation. He wants me to stay until after Election Day and fully oversee this engagement, but afterwards I’m out. Early retirement I would call it, if everything else were OK. However, at that time Eddie Campbell might want to hold me accountable for what I have done. I could go to prison for the rest