by Alex Ander
He shoved the door the rest of the way open. The house was dark, but a faint light came from around the window shades. Feeling for a switch on the wall, he slid his hand upward and three lamps lit the room. Judging by the condition of the exterior, Hardy had expected the inside to be a mess.
The living room was nicely decorated. To the left, a stone fireplace with a flat-screen television was mounted above the opening. The fireplace faced a large wooden coffee table to his right. The table was surrounded by sectional sofas, arranged in the shape of a ‘U.’ Behind each sectional, a sofa table supported a lamp. In the far right corner, another flat-screen television, two straight back lounge chairs, two ottomans and a coffee table—complete with a video game console—formed a cozy gaming area.
Hardy advanced further into the room, admiring the hardwood flooring. Letting out a low whistle, he said, “Very nice.” A wooden staircase, accessed from the right side of the fireplace, rose to the second floor. The staircase passed in front of the chimney on a diagonal.
Cruz slipped past him and headed straight for the kitchen at the back of the house. Passing the dining area, she noted the large oak table surrounded by six solid wood chairs. The kitchen cabinets, baseboard trim and flooring were also made of hardwood and stained a dark color.
While she continued to inspect the kitchen, Hardy walked past the fireplace and made a button hook. “I’m going to check out the upstairs.”
He did a ‘one-eighty’ at the top of the stairs, his fingers dragging across the rough stones of the chimney and walked down the upstairs’ hallway. He leaned over a wooden railing to the right and could see most of the main floor.
Four doors were lined up on the left side. The first and last one led to bedrooms, each room set up the same—bunk beds against the left wall and a flat-screen television on the wall across from them. A desk and chair in one corner and two dressers in the opposite corner rounded out the floor plan.
The second and third doors led to bathrooms. The left bathroom had the sink, toilet and shower against the right wall. Shelves holding towels, washcloths, bathmats and toiletries were on the left wall. The right bathroom was a ‘mirror-image’ of the left.
Hardy descended the stairs and saw Charity rummaging through the refrigerator. He veered left and checked out the two rooms on the first floor. One was a bedroom, arranged like the others, except with a queen size bed, and the other was a third bathroom. Can’t have too many bathrooms, I guess.
A duffle bag slung over a shoulder, Cruz entered the back door and dumped her suitcase on the kitchen floor. She poked a finger at the luggage and glanced at Charity. “You should be able to find some clothes in there that fit.”
“Thank you.” Charity closed the refrigerator and picked up the suitcase. “There’s not much to eat.” She took a bite of a juicy Jonagold apple and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I’m,” she chewed and talked, “going to take a hot shower.”
“You have your choice of two upstairs,” Hardy jerked a thumb behind him, “or one down here.”
Charity sunk her teeth into the apple and sloughed upstairs, the suitcase bouncing off her leg with every other step.
Cruz slipped the duffle bag off her shoulder, dropped it onto the dining room table and unzipped it. “I parked the car around back, so it wouldn’t be seen from the road.” She fumbled around inside the bag before handing Hardy two full magazines for the MP5. After clipping a double-magazine pouch—two full pistol magazines inside—to her belt, she slid the zipper on the duffle all the way to the right and faced Hardy, who had already inserted one of the magazines into the rifle and was shoving the second into the back pocket of his jeans. The hiss of water sounded from the upstairs shower.
Hardy set the rifle on the table and pulled out a chair. “How long before someone from your agency shows up?” He sat and let out a sigh. “And, how did that guy know my name?”
Cruz shook her head. “He knew mine, too.” She put her cell phone to her ear and ran her fingers through her hair. “Whoever he was, he seemed—” she stopped talking to Hardy and spoke to the cell. “Director Jameson, it’s Cruz. We’re at the safe house. The witness is secure. How far out is your team?”
“They’re airborne and should be on-site in ninety minutes.”
She caught Hardy’s eye and mouthed the words ‘ninety minutes.’ “We were almost too late.”
“What do you mean?”
She relayed the events to Jameson. “How many people knew the witness was at the restaurant? Unless those men followed Charity, how could they have gotten there so fast?” She paused. “Who was with you when you called me?”
Jameson was lost in his thoughts.
“Sir, are you still there?”
Jameson shook his head. “I’m here. I was alone in my office with the door closed. I contacted nobody, except the men who are on their way to you right now.”
“Then my question still stands. How did they know the witness was at the restaurant?”
“I don’t know, Cruz, but I plan to get to the bottom of this.”
“In what case is our witness testifying? Who’s being charged with murder?”
“Hector Gutierrez,” said Jameson.
“You mean the Mexican mafia crime boss?”
“Yes. A prostitute was killed in a hotel room in Texas, near the border. Miss Sinclair was staying at the same hotel. She is very…proficient with computers. While she was working with her laptop, she gained access to the hotel’s security cameras and witnessed the murder.”
“I’m assuming that when you say she gained access, you mean she hacked the system.” The shower stopped running and her eyes shifted upstairs. “Why didn’t she go to the police?”
“She did. By the time the police arrived, the security footage had been corrupted. That’s when the FBI got involved and put Miss Sinclair in protective custody.”
Cruz put her fingers to her lips. “So, the FBI is attempting to prosecute a man based on a woman witnessing a murder through security footage that is now corrupt. I’m not a lawyer, but that sounds like quite a stretch.”
“It is, but if we can get this charge to stick, then we can take one more criminal out of the equation. It’s worth a try.”
“Where’s Gutierrez, now?”
“He’s in federal custody, waiting for his trial.”
“Then, it’s safe to say that the men who broke into the safe house and the men who were at the restaurant are working for Gutierrez.”
“It’s a very good chance. I’ll call you when I get more. I think it’s also wise to keep our phone calls to a minimum. We don’t know how they’re getting their information, so watch your back, Cruz.” Jameson ended the call.
Chapter 8: SS7
Special Agent Cruz set the mobile phone on the table. “The Director doesn’t know how they knew where to find Charity. He says he was alone in his office when he called me.” She ran her fingers through her hair, flipping the locks backwards when she got to the back of her head.
“They didn’t follow her to the restaurant.” Hardy was fiddling with the MP5 rifle. “They came from down the street and didn’t appear to have been walking all that long.” He tapped the rifle’s stock with his middle finger. “No, they were parked down the street from the restaurant. I’m sure of it. They had inside information on Charity’s location. They knew she was there.”
Cruz leaned forward and showed him her palms. “What about the man who knew our names? How would he have gotten that information? Jameson told no one…No one was with him when he called. What if—”
“There’s another possibility.”
Hardy and Cruz tipped their heads back.
Charity was standing near the upstairs handrail. She had a large white bath towel wrapped around her body. Near her left armpit, the ends of the towel overlapped and rolled inward. The towel left a good portion of her body exposed. From their vantage point, both Hardy and Cruz could see Charity’s entire left leg up to her waist. H
er head was cocked to her right and she was holding a second towel in her hands, rubbing her hair as it hung down. The vigorous drying motion threatened to release the towel, barely clinging to her body.
Hardy could feel his cheeks getting warm. “What do you mean?” He saw Cruz in his peripheral vision, her eyes shifting from him to Charity.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I overheard your conversation and it got me thinking.” She stuck a finger in Cruz’s direction. “Agent DelaCruz, you said that—”
“Please call me Agent Cruz.”
Charity smiled and went back to drying her hair. “Agent Cruz, you said that Director Jameson was alone in his office when he called you.” Her eyes shifted to Hardy. “And, you’re certain those men didn’t follow me to the restaurant. I agree. No one was on the road when I got out of the car and walked into the woods. I could’ve gone in any direction, yet those men showed up at the restaurant too quickly. So, I’m thinking somebody was listening in,” she pointed at Cruz, “on your conversation with Jameson, Agent Cruz.”
“I’m not following you.” Hardy pointed across the table. “She said that Jameson was alone with the door closed. How can someone be listening?”
Charity tilted her head backwards and shook it a few times, her hair swinging back and forth like a clock pendulum. “I mean electronically.” She threw the towel over the railing and ran her fingers through the full length of her hair several times. “Someone could have been listening to your conversation over the Internet. I’m assuming either you or Director Jameson used a cell phone during the call, am I right?”
Cruz nodded. “He called me on my cell from his office line.”
“I’m sure Mr. Jameson has a cell phone of his own, too. And, it is most likely near him most of the time. So, those people could have been listening to the conversation through either one of those devices.”
His arms folded over his chest, Hardy cupped his chin. “How’s that possible?”
“Cell phones today are like supercomputers. There is so much technology in them they rival laptops. People don’t think of their cell phones as computers, so they don’t take precautions to safeguard them.” Charity leaned forward and rested her forearms on the railing before crossing her feet at the ankles. “Even if they did, there’s a little known thing called SS7.”
Hardy looked at Cruz; she shrugged her shoulders.
“Yeah, not many people are aware of it. SS7 is the crux of the problem. Billions of communications pass through it every day. It’s crucial in allowing mobile phones to roam. Experienced hackers know how to exploit SS7 and can do everything from listening to live conversations to spying on people through a phone’s camera and even activating the device’s microphone.”
Cruz sliced her fingers across her neck. “What if the power was killed…shut the phone off?”
Charity cocked her head. “Who does that? Besides, the mobile network is independent from the GPS chip and knows where the phone is at all times.”
Hardy stared at Cruz’s phone. “What does it take to gain access to someone’s phone?”
“Not much, really,” replied Charity, slowly shaking her head. “It could be something as simple as the phone’s number.”
Hardy snatched Cruz’s phone and stood. He dropped it onto the floor and smashed it under his foot, sending pieces in all directions.
Cruz sprang from her chair. “What did you do that for?”
Hardy pointed at Charity. “Get dressed. We’re leaving.” He pointed at the remnants of Cruz’s phone. “Jameson called you on that and told you,” he motioned upstairs with his head, “where she was. Jameson also sent you the coordinates to this place via that phone. This safe house may have been compromised already. We can’t stay here any longer.” He jerked a thumb. “If what she says is true, then those men may be tracking us through your communications.”
Cruz stared at the plastic parts. Son-of-a-gun…he could be right.
“Think about it, Cruz. How did that man at the restaurant know our names?” Hardy felt a vibration in his left front pocket. He stuffed a hand into the pocket. “These people have been ahead of us the whole time. Your phone may have been their tracking device.” He glanced at his phone—‘Boss.’
Cruz pointed. “You can’t take that. What if they’ve hacked yours as well?”
“Trust me, no one can hack this.” He had a state-of-the-art piece of technology two generations ahead of anything on the market. Given to him by Director Jameson, Hardy’s mobile was a satellite phone. Looking like any other ordinary cell phone, it was anything but ordinary, capable of getting a signal in places where normal phones could not. The GPS tracker was accurate to within a block of his location. “Hardy.”
“Hardy, it’s Jameson. You’ve got to shut off Cruz’s phone. We think they may have hacked into my cell and—”
“We know. I’ve destroyed it and we’re getting ready to leave this place. We can’t stay here.”
Cruz made eye contact with Hardy. “Who’s that?”
He went back to his conversation. “What are you calling me on, sir?”
“Don’t worry. I’m on my sat phone. They can’t hear us.”
Cruz heard Jameson’s voice. “Is that Director Jameson?” Why is he contacting Hardy?
Chapter 9: Crossfire
Hardy whipped his head around and darted to the front window. He drew back the curtain. “It’s too late, sir. They’ve found us. We’ve got to go now.” Hardy disconnected the call and jammed the phone into his pocket.
Having joined him at the window, Special Agent Cruz eased back the other curtain. Three vehicles were lined up at the tree line, facing the house. She counted twelve men fanning out and approaching the house. “Even if we could get to the Charger in time, they have the only escape route blocked.”
Hardy spied the sectional sofas. “Give me a hand.” They slid one sofa in front of the front door and dragged the other two to the window. Tipping them on end, they leaned them against the window. “That should slow them down.”
Running into the dining area, he hauled—Cruz pushed—the heavy wooden kitchen table toward the back door. Hardy joined her and they lifted the table and let it fall against the door. “That’s all we can do. Let’s go.” He raced toward the stairs. Cruz grabbed her duffle bag and followed.
Charity was standing at the top, dressed in Cruz’s clothes—shorts, t-shirt and tennis shoes. “What’s going on? Aren’t we leaving?”
Hardy jabbed his forefinger over her shoulder. “Change of plans—we need to shelter in place. Get to the bathroom.” Stopping and pressing his body against the handrail, he grabbed Cruz’s arm and pulled her past him, “Get her to safety,” before bounding down the stairs.
“Where are you going?”
“I forgot to get the lights.” Hardy moved from lamp to lamp, breaking each bulb. The main floor was in near darkness. With the lights out, they were on a more level playing field. Hardy’s team knew the layout, but the opposing force did not. He took the stairs two at a time and joined the women in the bathroom.
Hardy threw back the shower curtain and motioned toward Charity. “Get in the tub and lie down. It’s not perfect, but it might help stop bullets.” He helped her into the tub and held her arm, while she got on her belly. “Make yourself as flat as possible.”
Cruz drew and checked the status of her pistol. “How are we going to play this?”
Hardy motioned toward the stone chimney. “You take a position behind the chimney.” He tilted his head toward the opposite end of the hallway. “I’ll be over there.” He made an ‘X’ with his forearms. “We’ll set up a killing field and get them in the crossfire. We need to maintain the advantage of height and keep them on the first floor.”
Hardy ran to the end of the hallway, while Cruz knelt by the chimney. He wanted to ask her how long before her men arrived, but he knew the answer—too long. His phone vibrated. “We’re kind of in the middle of—”
Jameson cu
t him off. “The team I sent will never make it in time. We’re going to plan ‘B.’ Backup will be there in ten minutes.”
Hardy crouched and got as low as possible. “I’m not sure we have ten minutes, but copy that.” Changing the rate of fire on the MP5 to single-shot, he spied Cruz. “Okay, let’s make every shot count.”
Chapter 10: Cover Me
They did not have to wait long for the armed men to begin their assault. Glass broke at the front and back of the house. The sofa nearest the front door crashed into the living room. Two men entered through the window.
Hardy waited until the first man was inside. He fired three times and the man dropped to the floor, his leg hanging on the windowsill. The second man had one foot inside and could not back out soon enough. Hardy shot him twice in the head. The man’s body went limp and lay over the windowsill. Gunshots sounded to the right.
Special Agent Cruz fired on intruders at the back of the house. One man came in through the window over the kitchen sink. She shot him twice. When he did not go down, she fired two more times and he dropped onto the sink, his body sliding over the edge and landing on the floor. A barrage of gunfire came from the kitchen window. Chips from the stone fireplace flew in all directions and Cruz took cover, pressing her back against the chimney.
Gunfire came from the window in the living room. Bullets punched holes in the wall above Hardy’s head. He dropped to the floor, got into a prone position and returned fire. The bolt on his rifle locked open. Jettisoning the spent magazine and yanking a fresh one from his jean pocket, he jammed it into the rifle and released the bolt. “How we doing over there, Cruz?”
She leaned out and saw a man inside the kitchen and a second one jumping off the sink. Not having enough time to acquire a sight-picture, she extended her weapon and fired several times before the men disappeared from sight. Getting Hardy’s attention, she pointed two fingers at her eyes before holding up those fingers and motioning toward the main floor.
Hardy nodded and ran toward her in a low crouch. Back to back, they leaned against the chimney. He peered around the corner and had a clear view of the front window. Focusing on the wall facing the top of the stairs, he saw light from the kitchen window shining on it. Shadows danced on the pale-colored surface. The dark images moved, growing bigger. He held off as long as he could before pivoting his body around the chimney. His rifle up, he pressed the trigger six times, sending three bullets at each man.; the first one fell forward, while the second clutched his chest and toppled over backwards, his rifle discharging when he landed. Pivoting back behind cover, Hardy saw a man attempting to enter through the front window. He took careful aim and pressed the trigger once. The attacker disappeared from sight. Incoming rounds slammed against the chimney, which did not afford much protection for two people. Cruz’s body was pressed against Hardy’s back. He ejected the rifle’s magazine. Eight rounds left.