Protocol One

  Nathan Goodman

  Protocol One

  First published by Nathan Goodman in 2017

  Copyright © Nathan Goodman, 2017

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

  Find out more at reedsy.com

  The Special Agent Jana Baker Spy-Thriller Series, by Nathan Goodman

  Protocol One

  The Fourteenth Protocol

  Protocol 15

  Breach of Protocol

  Get a free copy of book 2 in this series, The Fourteenth Protocol. See details inside.

  To those people that serve in our military, federal agencies, police forces and others. You sacrifice so that freedom lives on, and we will never forget you for it.

  1

  A Communique Intercepted

  Headquarters, Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover Building, 935 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC.

  “Is this the intercepted communiqué that NSA sent over?”

  “Yes, sir,” the junior FBI agent said as he held up a printout.

  FBI Supervisory Special Agent Steven Bolz read the document. “What makes them think this communication is any more important than the thousands of others they’re intercepting? Al-Qaeda has been sending messages like these for the last nine months.”

  The junior agent pulled against the neckline of his starched white-collar shirt and shifted in his seat.

  Bolz looked at him. “Who sent this over?”

  “Came in on the secure line, sir. The NSA analyst said it had gone through channels, and that it was level ten.”

  “Level ten? All this communiqué indicates is a series of coordinates. And you said these coordinates correspond to places spread out across the Middle East? That’s not a level ten, that doesn’t even rate a level five in my book. Get him on the line.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Bolz took the receiver and waited for an answer. After the third ring, what sounded like a teenager’s voice answered, “NSA operation center, this is Knuckles.”

  “Did you say your name was Knuckles?” Agent Bolz said as he placed one hand on his hip.

  “Oh, Agent Bolz, you must be calling about that level ten. How can I help, sir?”

  “How old are you? Oh, never mind. Did you do the analysis on this communication?”

  “No, sir, one of my people did. I’m the senior supervisory duty analyst, sir. My duties are to ensure the veracity of claims made by analysts on my team.”

  “You’re in a supervisory role? You can’t be more than fifteen years old. How did you get this job? Look, son, we don’t have time to track down every communication made by a terror network. There are too many, you’ve got to narrow it down more than that.”

  Sitting in the vast NSA command center at Fort Meade, Maryland, Knuckles rubbed his chin, a chin that could barely produce peach fuzz. Those around him would say he looked fourteen years old, maybe fifteen on a good day. But those same people had come to respect him the way a student respects a professor.

  “Agent Bolz, I’ve personally analyzed over eleven thousand intercepts from terror cells all over the world. I am the senior-most member of the terror watch group. I train NSA analysts and personnel from all over the intelligence community. And that includes the intelligence services of our allies. My age is not in question here, sir. Not to mention the fact that my section chief, Bill Tarleton, reviewed the communiqué before we sent it to you. If you are second-guessing the importance of this communication, I’d suggest you take a closer look at the identity of the US citizen in question, then call me back.” The line went dead.

  Agent Bolz’s mouth hung open and he stared at the receiver.

  “Well that little son of a bitch. Call him back? I’ve been at the bureau longer than he’s been alive. Who does he think he is?” Bolz turned to the junior agent. “All right, run the identity of the US citizen in question. Check it against the terror watch list, see if he’s in the NCIC database, then check him against Interpol.”

  “Already done, sir,” the junior agent said as he handed another piece of paper to Agent Bolz. The young man’s hand shook, yet Bolz did not notice.

  “Well why didn’t you say so?” Bolz studied the paper. “Well I’ll be damned.” His eyes traced further and further down the sheet. “The chief financial officer of Petrolsoft? Good God. That’s a multibillion-dollar corporation. No wonder NSA put priority on this. We never get an intercept with people of this type communicating to anyone on the terror watch list.”

  “Sir?” The young agent said. “What does Petrolsoft do?”

  “Giant software conglomerate, Wall Street darling. Then a few years back they purchased several manufacturers of oil-well-drilling equipment and other equipment needed in oil production facilities. I own some shares myself.” Bolz rubbed his temple, lost in thought. Then, just under his breath he said, “Now why is the CFO of a multibillion-dollar oil conglomerate conversing with Al-Qaeda?”

  2

  The Interview

  Headquarters of Petrolsoft Corporation, Midtown Manhattan, 160 Madison Avenue, New York.

  Jana Baker sat in front of the mahogany desk and hoped the interview would end soon. It was going well but her nerves were getting the best of her. She quietly congratulated herself for getting this far. The man sitting behind the desk was none other than billionaire Rune Dima, Petrolsoft’s founder and chief executive officer. Jana focused all her effort to maintain eye contact and avoid glancing out the glass wall behind him into the stunning view of Manhattan’s skyline.

  “Well, Miss Baker, your credentials are outstanding. BBA from Georgetown University, very impressive. Number two in your class, very impressive indeed. I see you’ve passed your Series 6 and Series 7 exams in record time. Sounds like you’d like to be a Wall Street trader one day? Working the floor of the stock exchange, perhaps? And your resume also says you were captain of the track team. How did you have time to be captain of the track team and maintain that GPA? Now, you realize that you are interviewing for an intern position? It seems way below your skill level, if you don’t mind my saying. Anyone with the aptitude to pass the Series 7, General Securities Representative Exam at your age has particular ambitions.”

  Jana readjusted her hands; it was as if she did not know where to put them.

  “Yes, sir. My goal is to be involved in international stock trading and investing one day. This might be just an intern position, but working directly for the CEO, executing stock trades at your direction, would be invaluable experience.”

  “I usually prefer my interns to still be at university.”

  “And why is that, if I might ask?” she said.

  “They are less likely to leave after a few months. But you, you could get any number of different jobs.”

  “Sir, I know you feel like you’re taking a risk with me, but I’ll make you a promise. You bring me on as your intern, and I’ll stay in that role for a minimum twelve months.”

  “A twelve-month commitment before an employee finds a better opportunity is hardly worth my time, Miss Baker.”

  Jana smiled. “You’ll have promoted me by then, sir.”

  He stood and extended a hand.

  “Congratulations, Miss Baker. You start tomorrow morning. We can use the help. We’ve got some investing of our own to do. But the global oil technology business is unforgiving. We work long days here, so be prepared.”

  “Thank you, sir. You wo
n’t regret your decision.”

  He grinned. “I’d better not.”

  Jana walked out of the office and struggled to restrain the grin that was beginning to form on her face, not wanting the other office workers to think she was cocky. She pulled the door closed behind her, readjusted the tight pony tail restraining her silky blonde hair, and tugged her suit jacket. This might be just an intern position, but it was the beginning of what she had planned, a career in the lucrative field of international trading and investments.

  After she had left, a lean man with slick black hair and dark olive-colored skin walked into the office of the CEO, Rune Dima, and let the door close behind him. His clothes screamed young New York wealth.

  “Did you see the ass on that thing?” the man said.

  “Jeffrey.” It was mild rebuke.

  “Oh come on. Now tell me you wouldn’t like to tap that.”

  “The interns in this office are not yours to have sex with, Jeffrey. Granted, she is a beautiful young woman. But if you want to succeed as an executive, where your subordinates are concerned, you will have to keep your fly zipped. You are the chief financial officer of one of the top technology companies in the world. Remember, we are not in our homeland. Here, bad things happen to the stock valuations of companies like ours if a scandal hits Wall Street, particularly in this country. And with what we have planned, we have no room for scandal. The only way our plan works is if our stock valuation stays at current levels.”

  “You hired her, didn’t you?” Jeffrey smiled.

  “Yes.”

  “I knew it,” he said as he clapped his hands together and laughed. “And don’t hand me that politically correct crap. Let me guess, she was the most beautiful female applicant for the position? A trim body, long blonde hair down to the center of her back, legs up to here, and a nice tight—”

  “Enough. I won’t tolerate this kind of behavior, from you or anyone. She’s off limits, is that understood? And besides, what makes you think she has a such a great figure? That double-breasted business suit she was wearing obscures anything you might think you are seeing.”

  “Oh, the hot body is there. Believe me, it’s there. Come on, Rune, don’t be such a hard-ass. Tell me her name.”

  “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you? Jana Baker. She has an BBA with a major in finance from Georgetown, Jeffrey. Graduated second in her class. She’s not a play toy. Already passed her Series 7 exam. And based on the project she ran during her prior internship at our competitor, Oracle, she’ll be invaluable.”

  “And all with a body like that.”

  “You never quit, do you?”

  “I’m afraid not, cousin. Not until I get what I want, that is.”

  3

  Dean and Deluca

  Two weeks later, Midtown Manhattan.

  With the sunlight just cresting the buildings, Jana walked south on Fifth Avenue past Rockefeller Plaza and turned down Forty-Eighth. It was quicker to come this way in order to go into Dean and Deluca to grab a cup of coffee. Her budget didn’t allow her to make a regular habit of buying specialty foods from the retailer, but the place smelled like a little slice of heaven, and Jana couldn’t resist. The line at the coffee bar was short, unusual for this time of morning; a sign Jana was starting Monday off right.

  “Help you?” the man behind the coffee bar said to her.

  “A medium Manhattan blend, please.”

  “Yes, ma’am. That will be five eighteen with tax. How would you like to pay for that?”

  A man standing just to her side reached across and put his hand on Jana’s shoulder. His physical contact wasn’t overtly sexual, in fact, to an onlooker, it would have looked more like the way a father puts his arm around a daughter.

  “I’ll get that,” he said as he handed a credit card to the barista. “Make it two.” He withdrew the hand from her shoulder as quickly as he had placed it there.

  “Excuse me,” Jana said as she shifted away and looked at the man. He was wearing a crisp navy business suit and looked to be in his early fifties. Her look of disapproval was obvious, and to Jana, it was apparent he was hitting on her. “That won’t be necessary.”

  “Oh it’s no problem.” He leaned closer, but his eyes scanned over the tops of shelves and across the store; it was as if he was looking for someone. He then leveled a gaze at her. “How’s the internship going?”

  “What? Oh, you must work at Petrolsoft too. Sorry, I don’t recognize you. Did we meet already?”

  He ignored the question. “As the assistant to the CEO, you must have fairly unrestricted access across the corporate intranet. Am I right?”

  “Excuse me?”

  He crossed his arms. “Don’t you find it interesting the amount of investing going on over there?”

  “Look, I don’t know who you think you are but—” She stopped as the barista pushed two coffees across the counter.

  “Cream and sugar are over there,” he said while pointing.

  The man continued. “Investing in oil futures, that is.”

  Jana paused. “I can’t talk about things that go on at Petrolsoft. Do you work there or not?”

  “What’s concerning is that Petrolsoft seems to be making an awfully large bet that the oil market is about to skyrocket. A dangerous bet, in fact.”

  “I don’t know anything about—”

  He smiled. “Of course you do, Miss Baker. You’re the assistant to the CEO. You see everything that comes across his desk, and you’re the one making the buys.”

  Jana began a swift walk toward the exit, but stopped and turned. “How do you know my name?”

  He quoted from memory, “Jana Michelle Baker. Born October 19, 1986. The only daughter of Richard and Lillian Baker. Father, died 10/29/1988. Mother, deceased also, died November 8, 1993. You graduated summa cum laude from Georgetown University with a bachelor of business administration, and you just passed the Series 7 stock broker’s exam.”

  Her eyes flared. “What the hell is this? Are you stalking me? You want me to call a cop?”

  The man simply smiled. “We’ll be in touch.” He walked past her and said, “Oh, you might not want to mention our conversation to anyone, especially anyone at Petrolsoft.”

  As Jana’s mouth hung open, he exited through glass double doors and disappeared into brilliant morning sunlight pouring into the front of the store. He was gone.

  4

  Comraderie

  The man walked up West Forty-Eighth Street and took the first right onto Rockefeller Plaza, a street normally blocked to all nonofficial traffic. He slid open the door of a white van parked there and got in.

  “You get the tracker in place?” a man in the back of the van said to him.

  “Larry, Larry, Larry. Of course I got it in place.”

  “Well don’t be like that with me,” Larry replied. “I wasn’t the one to bounce you out of bed at four this morning.”

  “No, you’re not. Sorry, didn’t mean to snap at you.”

  “Sounds like somebody’s regretting not retiring? Come on, Chuck, you hit twenty years of service over three years ago. How come you decided to keep working? Don’t you have a beach to retire to or something?”

  “A beach? As if a guy on a federal pension can afford a place on the beach.”

  “Well still, after twenty-three years with the FBI, you should take a break. You’ve got some savings. Go live it up a little. You don’t need to still be slogging around the streets of Manhattan, working cases.”

  “But I enjoy the commute from Trenton so much.”

  The van pulled into Forty-Eighth Avenue traffic and drove away.

  “You enjoy the commute from Trenton? Trenton is, what, a two-hour slog through humanity? Each way, I might add?”

  “Well, nobody told me I’d get rich at the bureau. Trenton is the closest thing to Manhattan I can afford.”

  “Damn, Stone. The divorce really took it out of you, didn’t it?”

  Agent Chuck Stone
had worked a myriad of cases in his time as a special agent with the FBI, and this one had started no differently than most of the others. What was different this time was Chuck’s reassignment to the FBI’s New York field office.

  The Jacob Javit’s Federal Building at 26 Federal Plaza sat nestled into the Civic Center district in Lower Manhattan. The building, first opened in 1969, housed several federal agencies. But it was the FBI that took occupancy of the entire twenty-third floor. From this vantage point, agents on duty the morning of September 11, 2001 had been witness to the terror attacks on the World Trade Centers, which once stood a distance just nine football fields away. Most agents had no choice but to stand helplessly and watch as the buildings collapsed.

  “Well,” Stone said, “divorce ain’t cheap. Hey, did I ever tell you that when she moved out, she even took the ice trays out of the freezer?”

  “Took the ice trays out of the freezer? You mean to tell me you came home from work, found she had moved her stuff out, and she had taken the plastic ice trays with her? What a psycho.”

  “Tell me about it. Hey, check the tracking device. I stuck it to the subject’s shoulder, but those damn things are so finicky. Make sure it’s working.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ve got it right here,” Agent Larry Fry said, pointing to the laptop monitor. On the screen, a blip pulsed on the map of Manhattan’s midtown district. “Looks like she grabbed a cab or something. She’s headed down Fifth right now, toward the headquarters of Petrolsoft.”

  “Don’t you just love the start of a new case?” Stone said.

  “Love the start of a case? As opposed to the end, when we kick down a door and arrest a terrorist or other such asshole?”