Dead by Tomorrow - Part Three

Part Three

         Special Agent Carl Dumont ran out of the Mom and Pop Grocery and looked up and down the street. He saw no sign of Ellerman. Frustrated, he raised his mike and yelled into it.
         “I lost him, anybody have eyes on him?” looking around Dumont's eye were drawn to the city bus moving rapidly away. “Get somebody to check the Transit, get a car over to his apartment and another to his ex-wife's! I want this guy back at the office by sundown!” He listened to the acknowledgments through his ear piece, then reached for his cell phone and hit speed dial. The phone rang through after a moment.
         “I'm heading back in, get a brief ready on Brady Ellerman, I want to know everything about this guy.” As he was speaking, one of the overwatch cars pulled up to the curb and Dumont got in on the front seat on the passenger side. The Regional office was not that far from here he'd be back there in about 10 minutes, traffic allowing.
         So why had Ellerman run?, Dumont thought as he hung up the phone. Did he know that he had been under FBI surveillance for several months? Has he had prior contact with Rebbecca Webster? Ellerman needed to be brought in so that Dumont could find out what he knew.

         Brady watched his apartment from the alley across the street. He was sure no one was inside, but he didn't know if anybody had been inside before he got there. The car with the government plates was still parked down the street a little. They had a good view of the front door.
         The Apartment complex had been an old motel converted to permanent residence. It had no  door or windows in the back. The only way in was through the front. Brady assessed the situation and decided he couldn't risk trying to enter. He'd have to see if he could get in later. He was feeling unprotected right now, and he had a Glock 22 stashed behind the bathroom sink. He'd like to have that in case things got tight.
         He sat in the alley, out of view of the Feds and went over the events of the past few hours in his head. How long had the FBI been watching him? Why were they watching him? Was he a suspect in something? He found it a bit more than coincidental that they decided to show themselves soon after his run in with Rebbecca Webster. Granted, the FBI was very good at covert surveillance. So he probably never would have known they were around if they didn't want him to know. That being the case, why did they want him to know? He already knew he didn't want to be involved with anything they were doing, but for some reason they wanted him.
         Brady swore under his breath. He had walked away from this kind of bullshit four years ago! Whatever they wanted, whoever they were after, he wanted no part of it. It was time to disappear. He didn't want to run and hide, but he was seeing little choice. The only thing holding him back was his kids.

         Agent Dumont sat staring at his screen in unbelief. The Military Service Records of Brady Ellerman were sealed. They had known his name for sometime, and that he been in the service. But he had been subsequently labeled as a 'person of interest' in this investigation. Dumont rubbed his eyes and his forehead in aggravation. He let out a long sigh, then turning to his agents, he looked at them for a while.
         “Get the DoD on the phone.” Dumont said as he stood. “Get somebody down here that can tell us about this guy!” Dumont walked over to the table that had the Photos of Brady spread out on them. He picked up the series of photo's that showed Brady and Rebbecca Webster and their interaction. He looked closely at the one of Webster giving Ellerman her card. They had been taken from across the street from inside a full sized Van with blacked out windows. He switched to the next photo of Ellerman walking away, followed by one of him putting the card in his pocket. The next showed Webster on her cell phone as she watched Ellerman walk away. They had already pegged her as Former Military Intelligence as much as a year ago, and no surprise, her service records were sealed too.
         “Do we have the call Webster made right after the meeting?” asked Dumont looking at a female agent who sat a few desks away.
         “National Reconnaissance Office said it was encrypted.” she responded. “We got our guys working on it now. It was only a 64-bit encryption, nothing like the 128-bit the other guys use. We'll get it cracked.” Dumont nodded his thanks and went back to photos. So, Ellerman's Service records were sealed by the DoD, he thought. That means only one thing. He was Black Ops. That explained the interest that  Morse Protection Services had in him. They had been recruiting former Special Ops guys for a couple of years now. It wasn't until they were tipped off from the inside that they began to take and interest in  Morse Protection Services, MPS they called themselves. They were building their own private Army, and slowly the pieces of what they were up to were coming together.