The Shack: The Milk Run

"Delaney says Needles told her there are an awful lot of flattened squirrels on the road that wouldn't make a decision."

"I think I want to meet Needles one of these days."

She eyed me with a touch of concern. "You know he's dangerous, right? Like really, really, dangerous. My stepdad told me that, and he doesn't say much about his old unit or the guys in it. He met Delaney, and he told me she has Needles' eyes."

"I thought they weren't related?"

"They aren't." She stared at me meaningfully.

I took a bite of my sandwich and thought about the simmering rage I'd glimpsed in Delaney. She had it under control; absolute iron-clad control. But it wasn't gone. It was just on a chain. When she needed it, it would always be there. "A bulldozer?"

"A bulldozer."

I pictured the trail of destruction an enraged Delaney could wreak with a bulldozer. And Needles thought it was a good idea to teach her that. I needed to think about whether I ever wanted to meet him. "Sounds a little messy."

Mackenzie nodded. "It was messy. But it worked."

*****

A Simple Plan

*****

"So we need to get into the FBI." Tess stated it matter-of-factly, like she was talking about buying a hamburger.

"No, I said the file or whatever it is has to be in the conference room down the hall from my office at the FBI. We can't get in there."

I could hear the frustration in my voice. I'd screwed up, and I knew it. The whole damn trip to the Smithsonian Mall had been pointless. I'd been thinking of what amounted to a first date with Michael, not where we'd first met. I hadn't been concentrating enough. The injury, his death, it all had me focused on our relationship, and I'd screwed up. "The first time I met him, we were both in that conference room for a planning meeting; he was one of about a dozen agents there. I didn't think of it because we were just introduced; we didn't really talk or anything."

"It's not the most secure place in the world. The building is right on the street, not on a separate campus." Tess looked over a CAD diagram of the building I was pretty damn sure the FBI security team wouldn't have been happy to know was available. "If we could get over here... there's a cargo elevator that would take us to the right floor. It's only about 50 feet and a corner from there to the conference room door."

She seemed entirely too comfortable with that. I frowned and shook my head. "Inside the main security perimeter, up a secure cargo elevator, and into a locked conference room, all secured with key card readers."

Tess shrugged. "Could be worse, could be biometric locks, like a fingerprint or retinal scanner."

Delaney grinned evilly. "Oooh. Then we'd have to chop off a finger or pull out an eyeball and take it with us."

Tess sighed and shook her head. "It doesn't work that way. An eyeball might be good for a retinal scanner for maybe five hours, if everything goes just right, but the fingerprint scanner wouldn't work. It's not like the movies."

Delaney scowled. "That sucks."

"It's a two-part issue. A severed finger has no electrical field to even activate the sensor and then the RF sensor wouldn't be able to find living tissue to scan. You can't use a dead hand to open a phone either. Same problem."

Mackenzie stared at her. "What if you put just put the skin of someone's fingertip over your own? As long as it's fresh, right?

Tess shook her head. "You might be able to trigger the scanner because you do have an electrical field, but would the RF scanner actually read the print? I don't think so. That scanner uses RF to look at the fingerprint so it ignores even the chapped or dry surface of the finger. I think it would probably just read your print, and not the skinned fingerprint. I don't know for sure, not without testing it."

They were taking entirely too much ghoulish glee in the whole discussion, so I cut in. "Ignoring the fact, just for a moment, that you really are talking about chopping off my finger, I think they frown on that kind of testing."

Delaney made a sour face. "This would be in the name of science, right? Doesn't matter anyway. She said there are none of those kind of locks."

I grimaced. "Not exactly. The conference room has a standalone computer for presentations, and it uses a fingerprint scanner for access. If I had to guess where Michael left me something, it would be on that computer."

Mackenzie shook her head. "You'd be locked out. I mean, they can't be stupid enough to leave your computer access turned on."

Tess shook her head. "If they do, it's a trap to try to find out where you are accessing the network from."

"On the network, sure, but the stand-alone computers wouldn't be locked up. People on that one are given access individually as needed. Not much chance of anyone even thinking about that one. It isn't used much. But I wouldn't give us good odds on reaching the room."

Tess gave me a sly look. "So you're sayin' there's a fuckin' chance."

I stared at her with a bit of shock. Not only had the soft-spoken girl never really used foul language before, but she also wasn't using her own voice. If I hadn't been looking right at her when she said it, I'd have never known it was her.

Delaney winged a wadded up candy bar wrapper at her. "I do NOT sound like that!"

Mackenzie started laughing. "You do! You sound just like that."

Tess batted her eyelashes at Delaney. "You do. You sound just like that."

That wasn't her voice either; it was Mackenzie's. Maybe a spectrum analyzer could tell the difference, but I couldn't hear it.

Candy wrappers snapped back and forth for a couple of minutes until they got the horseplay out of their system.

I looked at Tess. "You're pretty good at impressions."

"I found out I was good at it when we studied voice imitation in counter-surveillance..." She stopped abruptly and looked at the other two girls. "I bet she would tell us a way in."

Mackenzie shook her head. "You know her agency can't get involved, Kimmi told us that."

"Maybe they can't, not directly. But she isn't big on being told what she can and can't do; you know that. I'm sure she can at least tell us how to get in." Tess sounded convinced.

I had a sick feeling that I knew the answer, but I had to ask. "Who?"

Delaney gave a feral grin that amped up my sick feeling. "Nobody."

Fuck.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

The Nobody Girl, aka Spooky, aka who-the-hell-even-knew. Donna's operative. I'd tried to look into her, find out who she was, once. I looked until a nicely worded hand-written note card appeared in my office safe, asking me, quite politely, to stop poking around in her business. Spooky was feral, almost rabidly anti-social, and fiercely dedicated to Pogo, her son, and what she saw as her duty. As best I could tell, she'd started as a surveillance asset and graduated to something of a "removal specialist." She hunted people, some of whom were nearly as dangerous as she was.

On the bright side, she had obviously managed to get into my office on at least one occasion.

Tess pulled out her phone. "All we can do is ask."

*****

Somehow or other, it seemed fitting that rain was drumming on the trailer. All three girls were looking out the windows, intense, nerves on edge.

Tess had gotten an answer back within a half hour. Spooky wasn't just going to tell them how to get in; she was going to come by to drop off things they needed.

Their reaction to the news was somewhere between joy and panic. I'd never really thought of Spooky as a possible subject of hero-worship, but there it was.

Somehow or other, she'd not only managed to teach them surveillance and counter-surveillance, she'd managed to make them really like her, if that was even the right word. All of them seemed enthralled with her.

When she finally arrived, she simply parked in front of the trailer, pulled a suitcase out of her car, and walked up. As soon as the headlights showed, the girls carefully spaced themselves around the room.

Tess let her in wordlessly without waiting for a knock.

Spooky looked around, then gave a slight smile. An actual smile. Like a human would. "A grow house?" She focused on Delaney. "Good choice. Did you consider incidental discovery?"

Delaney gave a single quick nod. "The sheriff knows about the grow house and tolerates it. He doesn't consider it worth the effort."

"What about the owner?"

"He won't talk."

Spooky gave a curt nod, and I barely managed to keep my shock from showing. She'd accepted Delaney's word with no hesitation. From someone like Spooky, that was almost unheard of. Pogo had drastically understated Spooky's opinion of the team. Probably deliberately.

Even as professional as the girls had seemed, the idea of Spooky actually trusting someone was something I'd never even considered possible.

If I got through this, I needed to put some effort into keeping an eye on these girls.

*****

Girl Scouts on Parade

*****

"This is BULLSHIT! Tell me you're fucking kidding me?" Delaney stomped out of the backroom, shaking her head and waving a tan piece of clothing around. "C'mon, please."

Tess started to giggle, and Delaney looked helplessly at Mackenzie. "Mack, please..."

The tall blonde girl shook her head and sighed. "It's the best we can do. It was the only thing we could think of that could get us into the FBI building. There's a classroom that's perfect for us. It's right there near the corner stairway."

Delaney unfurled a tan Girl Scout vest with an array of badges on it. She looked over at me. "Could you just shoot me now? Please?"

Tess was dissolving onto the bed laughing, and Mackenzie wasn't doing much better.

Spooky stopped working on me and looked over her shoulder at Delaney then over at Tess and Mackenzie. "The second she opens her mouth, I don't think anyone is going to believe she's a Girl Scout; I hope you two are more believable."

Mackenzie straightened up. "We really are Girls Scouts; we'll just be wearing our real uniforms. We're Ambassadors."

Delaney started to respond, then stopped and stared at me. "Holy shit. It worked. You don't look like you at all."

Spooky nodded. "Prosthetics, high-end stuff. CIA has a whole department for it for serious undercover work, but there are theatrical supply stores that sell top of the line stuff. With makeup, it works even at close range. I use it a lot on the fly, so I had to learn to apply it myself."

Tess and Mackenzie got up and came over. Mackenzie leaned in close. "That's just eerie. When do we get to learn this?"

"This summer, maybe." Spooky finished, then flipped through a stack of driver's licenses, finally selecting one. "This will work. Texas license, age and height are close enough, and the picture is close enough to work."

"Where'd you get those?" Even as I said it, I felt my gut sink.

"Wendy."

"How much did that cost?"

"A favor to be repaid later."

"Damn it. I can't do that. Not in my position."

Spooky nodded. "I owe her, not you."

"Wendy?" Tess had keyed in on the discussion.

"She's a smuggler with a lot of connections. Expensive and pretty mercenary, but she's completely reliable as long as she gets paid. You can trust her, but don't ever run out on the bill. She has a lot of reach and a lot of people who owe her favors." Spooky pulled a badge out and turned her attention back to me. "An FBI 'No Escort Required' cleared contractor badge from the Bethesda facility. It'll read right in the system."

Like any government agency, the FBI had countless contractors; everything from carpet cleaning to computer support, and technical experts of all kinds: international finance, military equipment, even online gaming systems.

I looked at the badge. "What is in the system?"

"You're listed as a retired agent, working as a contracted consultant on transnational finance issues."

"That's just about perfect." That was exactly the type of person who could get tagged with taking a group of Girl Scouts on a tour of FBI headquarters.

She nodded. "They'll all be registered in the system, and the tour is on the schedule."

"I'm not sure if I want to know how you did that."

She tweaked a corner of the latex and started lifting it away. "I'd normally have made a tour request like anyone else and just submit it through a congressional staff office, but that takes a couple of weeks, so I had to expedite this one. I had someone arrange for a short-notice tour." She turned and placed the prosthetic piece over the mannequin head. "You know how to apply the finished piece, right?"

"I've done it a couple of times. It's been a while, but I'm familiar with this kind."

She peeled off her surgical gloves and dropped them into her case. "Good. This is as far as I can go."

I leaned back. "I understand. No suggestions?"

"No, they can figure it out." She glanced over the girls, then back to me. "You're in good hands. Just keep Delaney away from construction equipment and breakable things... like buildings and bridges."

"Geez. It was just that one time..." Delaney rolled her eyes, but she ruined it with a malicious smile.

As she left, Spooky reached to each of the girls and brushed the fingertips of her free hand to each of theirs.

They just stood silent until she pulled away, and for a long moment after.

Delaney gave one last glance after her. "Okay, can someone tell me about this brilliant plan?"

Tess walked over to the computer and flicked it on.

*****

Delaney didn't look much like a Girl Scout. She'd grudgingly put on the white polo shirt and khaki slacks, draping the sash on as well as she could. She'd even traded her steel-toe boots for a pair of plain white tennis shoes. It all fit perfectly, at least physically, but it just looked strange on her.

Mackenzie eyed Delaney critically. "Smile. Girls Scouts are supposed to be friendly."

A pained expression somewhere between a grimace and a snarl crossed Delaney's face.

"Don't smile." Tess shook her head and shuddered.

Delaney pasted an even more implausible smile on. "How-dy-do, Ya-all."

Tess stifled a giggle, and Mackenzie snorted. "What is that supposed to be?"

"Ah ahm from the Great State of Texas." Delaney made an awkward movement that I suspected was supposed to look like a two-step or some other kind of cowboy thing, but it just looked like she had a hurt leg.

"What if we told everyone she was mute?" Tess choked it out as she struggled desperately not to laugh out loud.

"I'm trying." Delaney pointed down dolefully. "I'm even wearing these duck feet shoes instead of my boots. And I don't even know what these badges are."

Tess walked over. "I pulled out ones on stuff you'd know, just in case anyone asks." She began pointing. "First Aid, Water, Cyber-Security Basics, Photographer, Dinner Party, and Survival Camper." She looked over her shoulder at me. "Going out camping with Mack is like camping with Davy Crockett. Delaney just starts building stuff until she's comfortable and fed."

Mackenzie snickered. "I thought Kurt was going to die laughing. He left us out for three days last summer, and when he came out to check on us, Delaney practically had a small city built."

I checked my disguise in the mirror of the van. "Some of those tents get pretty elaborate these days."

"Tents? All the camping gear we had was the radio, belt knives, a plastic sheet, food, and a flint. Delaney built beds, a table, and stools before the first day was over. By the time Kurt and Katie came to check on us, we had a two-room house. With a barbeque pit, a fireplace, and an outhouse." Tess threw her hands up in fake exasperation.

"It was just a couple of round lodges." Delaney looked a bit less unhappy. "And you can't blame me for the roast pig. Mack shot it."

Tess nodded. "That was really good."

They all sat for a moment, apparently fondly remembering delicious roast pig.

For a second, I wondered why Girl Scouts would carry guns. They sounded so much like ordinary teenage girls at times that I kept losing track of what they really were.

It should have been clear. They'd spent half the night preparing. They'd gone over the layout of the building, their cover stories, and the plan repeatedly, at a level of detail that would have gotten approval from any deep cover operations planner on the planet.

They'd quizzed each other over and over. Room numbers, hallway turns, the number of flights of stairs, how many steps in each flight, locations of maintenance closets, parking garage details. Emergency exits, power outlet locations. Escape routes, exfiltration routes.

Tess had even chased down the type of capacitor in the stairwell emergency light sets so they "wouldn't have to wing it like that one time."

I didn't ask, and they didn't volunteer details. Tess muttered something about "if you don't know, you can't testify about it."

They even religiously repeated a mantra I had heard since I was a junior agent. "Good operations are smoke and mirrors. They aren't easy; they just look easy because the effort and planning are done beforehand."

One last gear check and they loaded up.

I'd frankly rather have had Delaney drive than Mackenzie, even though I was certain Mackenzie was competent and well trained. I'd had enough drivers to recognize that Delaney was one of the extremely rare few with an innate talent and a natural rhythm with machines. You can't train that; it's just wired in the nervous system. Once you've seen a few ugly motorcade incidents, you really start trying to find those rare few.

Makenzie was just more believable; she had height and a naturally closer-to-adult look that would draw less attention as a driver. Delaney still looked like she should be sitting on a telephone book. The Girl Scout uniform made her look even younger.

The drive into the city seemed to take forever, but Mackenzie handled the insane DC traffic as if she'd been driving in it all her life, eventually pulling into a parking garage a few blocks away from the Hoover Building.

*****

Tourists...

*****

We processed into the FBI at the visitor center along with several other visitors; senior citizens with a case of curiosity, congressman-sponsored tour groups and even a large high school group from Georgia.

The Girls Scout "legend" was a brilliant choice. With cranky senior citizens and deliberately obnoxious high school seniors, a small group of well-behaved Girl Scouts working on an achievement escorted by an actual cleared contractor was practically a breath of fresh air. We slipped through with minimal scrutiny.

Whatever strings Spooky had pulled worked perfectly.

As the girls' designated escort, I had no trouble taking them in, and while the woman in charge of processing followed every protocol perfectly, there was no reason for her even to suspect a problem.

We started working our way through the displays. The girls asked carefully thought-out questions about every display, taking careful notes -- even Delaney. While I expected her questions to veer toward the bloody and more graphic displays, she asked several serious questions about the lines of jurisdiction between the FBI, state agencies, and county level law enforcement.

With the key card, it wasn't particularly difficult to slip from the public access area into the bureau itself.

We might as well have been invisible. While everybody we passed noticed us, they had no real interest in us. Admittedly, I would have probably reacted the same way except to maybe stop and introduce myself and voice some platitudes about citizenship and community service. Friendly engagement with visitors, after all, was a policy that I had implemented at the Bureau as a form of public relations.