Russian Roulette

Chapter 19 : Usual suspects

White House (Present day)

Opening the door of my office I accompanied the British prime minister to show him the way out along with the German chancellor and their respective aides. We descended via the Grand Staircase per the route to the Entrance Hall. "We'll meet again tomorrow Madam Vice President." said the German chancellor. "Please help me to send President Reagan my regards."

"Of course."

"Tomorrow we will have plenty of issues to talk about in the summit." said the British prime minister. "Russia's response doesn't bode well."

"Yes, it is very concerning." I say. "The Russian President is somehow tethering between the line of guilty and not guilty."

"He's another KGB agent that we can't really trust." said the German chancellor. "The weapon's origin is very clear." The delegation of the British prime minister arrived at the Entrance Hall and whisked him away, followed by the delegation of the German chancellor. The doors closed back and I folded my arms, letting out a sigh. My chief of staff and the FBI director noticed the gesture.

My chief of staff switched on his tablet and tapped around, awaiting my next action. "Madam Vice President." he called out. "President Reagan's on the line, calling on board Air Force One."

"It's going to be a long day Oliver. I'll need to change out of this suit." I say. 

Three minutes later I walked down the hallway, dressed in more comfortable clothing to accommodate the day ahead. Timothy is by my side as we headed towards the basement of the West Wing. Oliver and Ryan are already down there waiting for me. I stopped when I saw a figure moving past one of the rooms and Timothy leaped into action before me.

"Stop!" he shouted. Secret Service agent Daniel Watson appeared within my range of vision and stopped. 

"Who was that?"

"Jason!" someone shouted down the hallway. Timothy reached for his automatic weapon, loaded with ammunition, and pointed at the source of the voice.

"I'm taking the vice president to the bunker below ground." he said, grabbing me by the arm and urging me to move. "Find out who the hell was that now Dan." Timothy hurried me into the elevator and we traveled down to the basement level of the West Wing. "We have intruders in the White House, male, between twenty and thirty. Code red, all agents are advised." he received replies a few seconds after the transmission and he promptly urged me into the room, shutting the door of the White House Situation Room and locking it up. I slumped into the chair without a word and the screens hummed to life. President Reagan occupies the middle section of the screen, above the screen showing NSA Kaitlyn Brandon. DHS Charles Jacobson is on the screen of my right-hand side beside the NSA and DHS Secretary Brianna Hawthrone to Brandon's left. White House Chief of Staff Jack Peterson and DNI Catherine Eckhart filled the screens beside the president.

"Good evening Madam Vice President." President Reagan greeted, as polite as usual. 

"Good evening Mr. President." the four of us greeted back. 

"I have just heard from my staff regarding a security threat and breach in the White House." he said.

"We encountered Watson in the hallway, who is supposed to be guarding Lone Star's husband. Judging from Agent Watson's presence we can agree that he is in the White House but the company he is now keeping is unknown." the Secret Service agent reported. 

"That's all we can account for." said the DNI. "Have you found anything regarding the Volodin poisoning?" she asked the FBI director.

"I recently have a meeting with Chancellor Merkel and the new British Prime Minister." I say. "Their aides brought us more information we can zero-in on our suspect."

"Go on." the president said, leaning back in his chair.

"Ryan's report concluded that the poison is a hundred percent Novichok."

"Hell, shouldn't Novichok be extinct already?" the DNI asked.

"Not quite, as we assumed." the FBI director interjected. "We found traces of Novichok in the bottle of milk he was drinking."

"But before meeting the leaders I had a chat with Tatiana Volodin." 

"The wife of the leader of the Russian opposition?" Catherine raised a brow.

"Nothing much but leaving me a letter supposedly written by Sergei Volodin before his poisoning." I say. "The chief of MI6 handed me a recording device in the form of a pen. He says that the voice of the culprit is recorded inside."

"You can perform the analysis yourself." Ryan said. "But the Russians are still silent about it."

"He now tows the grey area between being innocent and guilty, however."

"I agree with the vice president." Jack said. "Can we really trust the Russians?"

"Here's the conclusion Jack : depends on the person." I replied. "Which is very hard."

"Could it be the old communists who did this?"

"The agent in charge of tailing the suspect witnessed him interacting with an elderly Russian man." I repeated what the chief of MI6 has told me. "That certainly raised some red flags."

"IN that case, the man definitely fits the profile of an old communist." said the DNI. "It's certain that we're making progress. We found the weapon but the killers are still at large."

"We'll need to find out their identities through the pieces of evidence we now have." 

"What if we play the recording right now?" Ryan suggested. 

"Okay." pressing the play button while holding the pen with a gloved hand we listened to the entire conversation.

"Newspapers for fifteen million dollars?" the president asked, confused.

"It's a cover. Newspapers doesn't cost fifteen million bucks." 

"I agree." Brianna said. "It must be a form of a code."

"But the voices were scrambled." Jack pointed out. "It's pretty suspicious to me."

"I agree. This device is commonly used to pick up voices but our suspects deliberately wore a voice scrambler that will activate on it's own when their conversations were picked up by another source." I say. "Common trick used by spies."

 "Can we even find out their identities?"

"You'll need computers, descrambling software to isolate the components."

"I trust that you have a similar software?"

"I do, Mr. President." I replied. "It's going to take a while, you can't hurry technology sir."