Laynie Portland, Retired Spy

by Vikki Kestell

  He looked at the card before slipping it and the badge into his pocket. “Thank you, Constable Mahoney. I will now give you the key to your handcuffs. Unlock the cuff attached to the steering wheel, put your hands behind your back, and cuff your other hand.”

  When Mahoney had finished, Zakhar opened the car’s trunk. “You will get inside.”

  “No. No, I won’t.”

  Zakhar was in a hurry to return to the electronics store before it closed. “I do not wish to shoot you, but I will if you do not cooperate. It is as simple as that.”

  “You will shoot me after I get in.”

  Zakhar shrugged. “I might not.”

  The young officer, trembling with the certainty that he was about to die, climbed awkwardly from the car and stumbled to the trunk. He sat down on the edge and appealed to Zakhar again.

  “Please, man. You don’t have to do this. I have a wife, a family. Please.”

  “Get in, I won’t tell you again,” Zakhar said.

  Mahoney swung his legs over the side and rolled into the trunk, onto the equipment stored inside. He struggled to right himself, a nearly impossible task, given his hands were cuffed behind his back.

  “You will be uncomfortable for a night, perhaps, but you will live,” Zakhar said.

  This is your lucky day, although I don’t know why, he thought.

  Zakhar shut the trunk, sealing the man inside, locked the doors to the car, and tossed the keys under the car. Then he walked around to the back of the station, pulled off the ski mask, got into his stolen car, and headed for the electronics store.

  THE LIGHTS WERE STILL on inside Dave’s Blue Label Buys when Zakhar arrived. He parked, retrieved the newspaper and the photographs of Linnéa Olander from his bag, and got out. Standing in the lot, he clipped the constable’s badge to his belt, patted his pocket for the officer’s ID card, and walked toward the store’s entrance.

  Not far inside the doors, he came to a halt and gaped in amazement. Never in his life had he seen a store like this, shelves filled to the ceiling with every conceivable electronic product.

  What luxury! What opulence! What riches!

  The abundance shook him to his core.

  A doorkeeper in a blue shirt asked him, “Can I help you find what you’re looking for, sir?”

  “I . . . I’m looking for gaming systems.”

  “Please use the center aisle, just to your left. Follow it to the back of the store. You’ll see a sign for the Gaming Department—however, please be aware of the time? We close in fifteen minutes.”

  Zakhar nodded and hurried down the main aisle, gawking at the shelves he passed, each one burgeoning with gleaming, colorful products. When he arrived at the gaming section, it was the same—boxes of game systems piled atop each other, racks of games, controllers, and other accessories.

  He approached a salesclerk who was already totaling his register.

  “Yes, sir? May I help you?”

  Zakhar tapped the badge on his belt. “Police Constable Mahoney. I am looking for this woman. I believe she may have been here earlier today to buy a PlayStation system.” He placed two glossy photographs on the glass countertop between them.

  The clerk shook his head. “I don’t recollect assisting her, but I’ve only been on duty since three.”

  “Who else was working in this department today?”

  “Let me check.” He got on the phone and pushed a few buttons.

  Another clerk sauntered into the area, catching the first clerk’s eye.

  “Hey, Sean. I’ll be ready to go in a few.”

  “Not a problem, Rory.”

  Sean, the second clerk glanced at Zakhar and saw his badge. “Are you Ontario Provincial Police?”

  “Yes, Constable Mahoney.”

  “Cool. My brother-in-law is O.P.P.”

  “Constable Mahoney is asking about a woman who was looking for a PS2,” Rory mumbled, “and I’m trying to find out who was on shift this morning, but I guess James isn’t in his office.”

  “The store is closing, so he’s out on the floor, making sure we close out on time.”

  Sean leaned over to look at the photographs on the counter. “Hey, I recognize her! Waited on her this afternoon.”

  Zakhar worked to keep his elation in check. “Who are you, please?” he asked.

  “Sean Tremaine, sir. I work in computers.”

  “And this woman bought something from you?”

  “Oh, yeah. A laptop.”

  “She used a credit card?” This was Zakhar’s opportunity to gather the woman’s card number.

  “No, she paid in cash.”

  Zakhar’s anger flashed across his face, and Sean stepped back.

  “What else can you tell me?”

  “Um, while I was getting her order together, she also went over to the mobile phone department.”

  “She bought a mobile phone? Who waited on her?”

  “Kelly did. I think . . . well, it’s almost nine and the store is closing. I think she’s clocking out.”

  Zakhar took Sean by the arm. “Take me to her at once.”

  Sean looked down at his arm. “Hey, man. You don’t need to grab me like that.”

  Zakhar exhaled and released the young man. “I apologize, but the situation is urgent. This woman was on Flight 6177 and is a person of interest in the attempted hijacking.”

  “Oh, wow! And she seemed so nice. Come on. I’ll help you find Kelly.”

  “Quickly!” Zakhar urged him.

  Sean ran, Zakhar behind him, to the back of the store through a door marked Employees Only. Sean glanced toward a time clock. Three employees were clocking out, but not the woman he was looking for.

  “She’s probably out back in the employee parking lot, getting in her car.”

  “Hurry,” Zakhar insisted.

  Sean hit the back door and pushed through. “There! That’s her car!”

  The car had backed out of its slot and had turned onto the main lane leading out of the lot. Zakhar raced toward the car, flagging down the driver. Sean caught up to him as the woman stomped on her brakes.

  She rolled down her window. “What’s the matter?”

  “I am Constable Mahoney,” Zakhar announced. “I need you to return to the store.”

  Minutes later, she had logged into the store’s system at her desk and was showing Zakhar her sales for the day.

  “She paid in cash for the phone, but the service provider requires a credit card for the monthly contract fees.” She pressed a few keys and a printer whirred into action. She tore the perforated paper from the machine.

  “Here you go. Elaine Granger. Nice lady. Bought the Nokia 3310. This is the credit card information she provided to pay for her AT&T service contract.”

  “And the phone’s number?”

  She pointed. “Right here.”

  “Excellent.” Zakhar’s smile was broad, but it was something else, too.

  Cruel.

  Predatory.

  “The O.P.P. thanks you for your assistance, Kelly.”

  “Glad to help, constable,” Kelly answered.

  She glanced sideways at Sean who replied with one, negligible shake of his head. The constable made them both uncomfortable.

  Zakhar’s grin gave Kelly chills.

  Chapter 23

  SIX O’CLOCK IN THE morning found Laynie in the campground’s café, one of their first customers. She had connected her laptop’s modem to the café’s broadband outlet when the waitress planted a menu next to her elbow.

  “Coffee, please,” Laynie asked. “I’ll be ready to order when you return.”

  As she sipped her first cup of the day, Laynie typed in an IP address that took her directly to the private online chat room she and Christor used. Specifically, Laynie wanted to download and read Kari’s latest letter.

  As Christor had promised, a .jpg file was waiting for her, a photograph of Mt. Rushmore. Laynie downloaded the image to her hard drive, withdrew the CD-ROM case fro
m her purse, inserted it in the CD drive, and installed the image decryption software on her new laptop. When she clicked on the image of Mt. Rushmore, the decryption program opened Kari’s letter.

  Laynie scanned it first—Kari’s regular news regarding Gene and Polly, Shannon and Robbie, Max and Søren. Laynie stopped when she read,

  “Max is settling into his freshman classes at UNL. Compared to our little farming community, Lincoln is a big city, full of mystique and adventures. I’m very glad he has settled into a church home at Liberty Christian Center and has found other young men of faith on campus. He and a group of friends meet outside their dorms some afternoons following classes for paintball battles.”

  Laynie read and reread Kari’s letter, mulling over it and considering the smallest of ideas. She paid her bill and, on her way out of the café, stopped in the general store. There she purchased an atlas of the US, since the Canadian atlas didn’t reach far down into the States. She also bought bottled water, a juice, and a coffee to go.

  When Laynie returned to Daisy, she had one more task to complete before getting on the road. Her new phone was fully charged, so she input Shaw and Bessie’s number and those of their children into her new phone’s contacts, adding other numbers of importance to her.

  Then she called Shaw’s mobile phone.

  His wary voice answered. “Hello?”

  “Shaw, it’s Elaine.”

  “Thank the Lord! Are you all right? Where are you calling from?”

  “Yes, I’m fine, and I have bought a phone. I’m at the campground you recommended, but I’ll be heading west soon. Put my number into your contacts. I just wanted to check in with you and Bessie before I got on the road.”

  “We’re fine, too. We got an early start this morning and should reach our daughter’s place outside Winnipeg late this afternoon—if my hips last that long.”

  “What about your dialysis?”

  “Our girl got it set up for me. I’ll go straight to the clinic for an evaluation and treatment when we arrive.”

  “But Shaw . . .”

  “I know, I know. I’m overdue and not at m’ best. Bessie may have to drive soon—but we’ll get there, don’t you worry. When we’ve rested a bit, we’ll move on to our son’s place in Penticton.”

  Laynie left the campground by midmorning. Before she left, she opened the atlas Shaw left her and decided on her route. She pointed Daisy toward Highway 148 westbound and stomped her foot down on the gas.

  Hard.

  ZAKHAR, TOO, HAD THINGS to do that morning—although he was not in a hurry. No, he no longer had to rush. He would take his time and enjoy some of the comforts his money could afford him—and he would utilize the help Baskin had offered him.

  After leaving Dave’s Blue Label Buys the evening before, he had selected a hotel close to the Ottawa airport and checked in, downing several drinks and sleeping soundly until around eight. When he rose, he showered, dressed, ordered breakfast, and repacked his belongings in the duffle bag.

  His first course of business for the day was to lose the stolen car he was driving and acquire a legitimate mode of transportation. He did not check out of the hotel but took his duffle with him to use as a prop and headed for the airport. He veered off where the signs directed him to the airport’s long-term parking.

  In the lot’s drive-through, he received a tag, placed it in the car’s front window, and found his assigned parking place. He removed his bag, locked the car, and waited for the shuttle that would take him to the airport’s departures drop-off area.

  At the departures curb, he got out with the other shuttle passengers, tipped the driver, and made his way into the airport—only to locate and take the escalator down to the arrivals level. There he approached a car rental desk, presented his Canadian driver’s license and credit card, and asked for a rental.

  “My business will take me out of the province,” he explained with a relaxed smile to the woman behind the counter. “I am uncertain of the exact day my assignment will conclude, but I estimate my need for the rental at around a month.”

  “We can choose an estimated return date, a month from now. If you need the car longer, simply call our 800 number to extend the return date.”

  “That will work just fine,” Zakhar said, signing the paperwork.

  He left the airport and went up to his hotel. After lunch in the hotel’s restaurant, he returned to his room and used the hotel phone, rather than his mobile phone, to place the call.

  “Ms. Gagnon please,” he told the woman who answered.

  A moment of silence passed, then she replied, “Yes?”

  “I require pomoshch.”

  Pomoshch was the Russian word for assistance.

  A breathy, excited chuckle resounded over the line. “Do you, now? I’ve been expecting your call. I was beginning to wonder how long it would be before I had something new and entertaining to do—other than drudge away at this job. I hope your assignment enlivens me some. What shall I call you?”

  “Dimitri will suffice.”

  “Very well, Dimitri. What do you require of me?”

  “I wish you to track a credit card and mobile phone.”

  “Cardholder’s name?”

  “Elaine Granger.” He read off the credit card number and expiration date from the printout Kelly at Dave’s Blue Label Buys had provided.

  “And the phone?”

  “Same name.” He read the number to her.

  “I can, most certainly, provide you with many bits of information—such as her call and text logs. I can give you the general location of her calls, based on which cell towers her phone pings. And where her credit card is used and what she buys.” She laughed, as though responding to a private joke.

  “I cannot, however, pinpoint her exact position for you, unless she uses her card, say at a hotel, and remains there long enough for you to, er, seek her out at that location.”

  “I know this,” Zakhar growled.

  “Well, do you wish me to dissect her financials? Perhaps drain her bank accounts, freeze her card?” The woman chuckled again.

  Zakhar was already tired of her odd attitude.

  “What I wish,” he ground out, “is for you to send me a daily update—where she has called from, whom she has called, where she has used her card and for what. I do not wish her financials tampered with or for her to sense anything amiss.”

  “What a shame. I see she has a tidy little amount in a Montreal bank that she transferred from an account in Singapore. I could send the funds of both accounts into the ether.”

  Zakhar sneered. By “send into the ether,” you mean move into one of your own accounts.

  “No, I do not want you to do that.”

  “Well, stay on the line with me a few minutes while I look around.”

  THE WOMAN DUG DEEPER, hacking into the Singapore HSBC system, looking for the original wire transfers that had funded the account, finding them, following them backward through a series of proxy servers and a long line of bank accounts, now closed, hacking into the closed accounts’ bank systems and repeating the process, farther and farther, finding additional wire transfers that went to yet more accounts, some of them still active.

  She giggled and folded a stick of Black Jack gum into her mouth. Why, you are a very sneaky girl, Elaine Granger. I like your style.

  On the other end of the call, Zakhar huffed. “Again, I wish you to do nothing except send me daily updates. I want her to relax, to feel she has escaped pursuit . . . until I am ready to, er, seek her out.”

  “As you wish. What is she driving?”

  “I have that information.” He retrieved the motor home’s registration card and read the vehicle’s make and model aloud to her. “But she has swapped the motor home’s plate and is, for the moment, using this plate number, Ontario AMLL 508.”

  “She’s driving a motor home with stolen plates? How quaint—this will be fun. And does she have much of an online presence? Email? Bulletin boards? C
hat rooms?”

  “She just purchased a laptop. She must have a reason for doing so.”

  “Indeed. Where, pray tell, did she acquire said ‘just purchased’ laptop?”

  “Dave’s Blue Label Buys, Ottawa. Yesterday.”

  “Verrry gooood, Dimitri,” she purred. “Also purchased under the name Elaine Granger?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how would you like me to convey your daily data dump, hmm? Email would be best.”

  “I . . .” Zakhar did not have an email address.

  “Oh, I see,” she laughed. “Well, we must do as your Elaine has done and acquire a laptop for you. Give me your location. I will have one delivered to you, already configured for our conversations.”

  I will search you out, too, Dimitri, never you fear. Whatever you believe you are hiding from me, I shall know better than the back of my hand.

  “Okay,” he agreed, and gave her his hotel information.

  “Ms. Gagnon” disconnected the call and set to work. In her regular job, she was known as Thérèse Benoit, but that was not the name she had been born with. She’d left that life behind more than a decade ago. As far as her employers at the RCMP knew, Thérèse Benoit was of French-Canadian parentage, born and raised in Québec. A loyal, albeit less-than-conventional, citizen.

  Imbued with a razor-sharp mind and an even sharper wit, coupled with world-class technical skills, Thérèse was highly regarded in international hacking circles—but not as Thérèse Benoit. In those elite factions that existed in the shadows of society, she was known by her handle, Vyper.

  While some hackers lived to advance their reputation, Vyper preferred power—and information was power. She collected information like hobbyists who collected rare stamps or like the wealthy amassed rare art.

  Information also equated to money, another source of power, and Vyper loved the anonymous accounts she’d seeded in banks around the world—Dubai, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Argentina, The Caymans, and lesser-regarded havens such as Luxembourg, Thailand, Crete, and Morocco.

  Vyper was the highest-paid cyber security specialist in the RCMP’s computer center in their Rideau Glen compound, a tony suburb of Ottawa along the Rideau River. While her job was dead boring, it gave her access to their data and their data procurement means and methods. Her unique position also gave her elevated cachet, the status to dress as she wished, shave her black hair on one side, wear a headset and listen to music while she worked, and chew two or three packs of her beloved Black Jack gum every shift.