Free Whack Job by Mike Baron Page B

they’d been betrayed. The Agency conducted a thorough investigation and could find no evidence of a leak. When Otto asked if anyone else had survived they wouldn’t respond.
    In the end it was adios and thanks for your service. Don’t let the screen door hit you on the way out.
    Convinced he was about to get whacked, Otto disappeared. He melted away. He traveled the nation. He never approached the land he owned in Colorado. He spent the next six months underground frequently changing identities. He watched. He waited. He used library computers and cyber cafes. Despite not owning a computer he was thoroughly conversant with the technology, at least up until six months ago. He learned by clicking and doing. He learned to spot a certain type who also frequented these venues: hackers. He could spot a hacker a mile away. They were all men. They were all pierced and tatted and wore anti-conformist badges, wired on Red Bull and coffee.
    The silence re: Operation Firebrand was unnerving. He searched for other members of the team but they seemed to have disappeared as well. As if someone were stalking them.
    Whoever set them up must have deemed him no threat. He was damaged goods, not worth the hit. Discredited. A loon. He had no valuable intel.
    He’d relived the mission a thousand times in his head.
    Was Ghaddafi really the target, or was it the laptop? Was Hornbuckle in on it? He must have been. But Hornbuckle too had disappeared.
    Lying in the Best Western, Otto used an old Jedi mind trick to turn his own off: he counted thylacines. Finally he fell asleep.
    In the morning, Otto fed Steve a can of horse meat, put on khakis, a plain gray t-shirt and a gray sports coat, locked his pistol in the room safe, had breakfast in the cafe, put Steve in the service harness and walked the two blocks to FBI HQ at 8000 E. 36th St, across the street from Humberto Uribe Park. The foyer contained an information desk front and center, behind that a series of stanchions forming an aisle leading to a metal detector, and beyond that the elevators. An armed agent in a blue blazer sat in a folding chair next to the metal detector. The lobby was active at nine a.m. with agents coming and going.
    The information officer was a no-nonsense middle-aged woman in a blue blazer with nametag Special Agent Maureen Fassbacht. Her eyes followed him across the foyer until he stood in front of her.
    “Good morning. Otto White to see Special Agent Lon Barnett.”
    “One moment please.” The woman picked up a telephone and spoke. She replaced the receiver and reached beneath the desk for a laminated card that said ‘VISITOR’ attached to a lanyard.
    “Please put this on and step back through the metal detector.”
    The other agent had Otto and Steve step through the detector, then asked Otto to empty his pockets. Otto complied. Wallet, wintergreen Certs and a steel folding knife with a four-inch blade. The man wanded Otto and the dog. He gestured for Otto to pick up his belongings but held on to the knife.
    “You can claim this on the way out. Wait here. Someone will come down and get you.”
    Otto sat on a marble bench against the wall. Eight elevators, four facing four, opened and closed. A man in a white long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a dark blue tie held in place with a tiny American flag clasp exited the elevator. His eyes fixed on Otto and he beelined over. He was stocky, middle aged, with a shaved muscular head.
    Otto stood.
    “Agent White?” he said offering his hand. “Lon Barnett. Who’s this?”
    “This is Steve.”
    “What kind of service dog is he?”
    “Steve is a tracker. He goes where I go.”
    Barnett held the elevator door for them. A young woman with a briefcase cooed over Steve and petted him. They got out on the eighth floor.
    “I’ll be your liaison for both the FBI and Homeland Security,” Barnett said leading them down a hushed hallway with offices on both sides. They entered a large foyer with “SPECIAL