Chapter 20
Who the Hell Is Mark Sloan?--Jimmy
The Chicago lab was empty at this time of night besides the occasional guard patrol that travelled along the same routine path. Jimmy’s intelligence brought him to the lab in hopes to discover the source of the mole. He searched through loose papers, files, and open cabinets for anything of interest. He knew that the information he needed to identify the culprit was most likely locked away in a safe, cabinet or digitally on a computer. Therefore, he attempted to hack into the computer in the main lab. Files nearby belonged to Dr. Jane Barnett. She was the source that Simon trusted to conduct the research on Taliah’s blood. After a thorough investigation, she was clean of any espionage. However, a few apprentices’ names were attached to some of the bloodwork documentation on the internal network. He wrote their names down and rummaged their lockers and personal desks.
Christopher Baites was the first apprentice whose locker and desk was searched through. His locker was in pristine condition on the inside. Everything was arranged in order and all personal items were marked with a CB. Jimmy located a flash drive in the pocket of a lab coat within the locker. He placed it in his pocket to review later. It also had the initials CB written on it. His desk was just as neat and tidy as his locker. Jimmy did manage to find a pair of women’s panties in one of his drawers. Whose were they? Nothing else of interest was found and he moved on to the next.
Victoria Hines was the second apprentice on his list. He smelled her locker before opening it. The fragrance of some cheap perfume escaped in a rush towards Jimmy as he opened the locker door. It was not as tidy as Christopher’s was, but she did have a bit more documentations concerning Taliah than he expected to find. One of the folders had pictures of Taliah, taken when she first arrived. She was much skinnier than what he remembered her to be at their safe house. Despite how rough she looked in the photo, a radiance of beauty still shined through. She also wore a contagious smile that warmed his heart. He scanned through more documents. Nothing found linked this woman to Tricon. However, she was overly interested in Taliah’s information. Maybe she is a fan of hers or trying hard to learn more about the patient’s past. Either way she was the top suspect so far. He searched her desk with the same result, except this time he found bags of candy and empty wrappers in her locked drawers. On her desk sat a picture in a frame of Taliah and a woman in a lab coat. After studying more pictures on the woman’s desk it was determined that, the woman was Victoria. The picture was signed and dated about three months ago. Maybe she was a fan. Jimmy moved on to the last apprentice’s locker.
Mark Sloan’s locker was completely empty, besides a lab coat that hung from a hanger inside. Nothing was in its pockets either. He moved on to the desk. Again, nothing was found inside the desk besides the normal variety of office supplies. Inside the locked drawer was a blank business card that had a twenty-five digit alphanumeric code written on it. He fired up the computer on the desk and keyed in the code in the password location. It did not work. Maybe it was for something else on the computer. He wondered if the generic login that was used on Jane’s computer would work. She did not have anything sensitive on the sharedrive or on her specific pc. Therefore, she used the generic password that she was issued to first login. Jimmy tried the same setup on Mark’s pc with success. First initial, last name as the login id and password123! as the password. However, Mark Sloan had another server access request upon logging in. It required a password only. He typed in what was written on the card W13X4545YZBCI9BA35RRH1758. A title screen for NIOX software opened followed by a chat window that contained a blinking white box. After fifteen seconds, a message from BlackMamba86 appeared.
Jimmy looked around and didn’t see anyone in the lab. He typed in the window.
BlackMamba86
Guest
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this is mark sloan. am i right?>>
Thirty seconds passed without a response.
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use my real name? lol>>
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that’s just as good. i’ll find u.>>
There was a twenty-second pause.
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u will make it out alive. lmao>>
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hiding behind blackmamba86?>>
<
The smell of electrical burning alarmed Jimmy. Seconds later, an explosion from within the computer hard drive sent him fifteen feet backwards towards the wall. He suffered severe third degree burns on his face and on the entire right side of his body that faced the computer tower. Dazed and in pain, he struggled to pull himself to his feet. His left wrist was broken on impact of the wall and his right knee was gushing blood from the bone beneath protruding through the skin above the kneecap. Several guards were converging on his position drawn to the sound of the blast. Jimmy’s adrenaline kicked in and he barely managed to escape unseen. He held an id badge of Mark Sloan’s in his left hand and memorized his features. He was going to kill that man.
After travelling through Chicago and exiting through the gates, Jimmy eventually made it to his car. It was parked in an alley three blocks from the main gates. He sat down, reclined his seat and sighed. His skin had already begun the healing process and the pain became overwhelming. Before he succumbed to sleep, he verified the doors were locked and took a shot of the virus serum.
The next morning Jimmy awoke revitalized and free from injury. His clothes were torn and burned through so he changed them. As he removed his pants, he noticed something was poking into his left thigh. He retrieved a flash drive from his pocket. It took him a few seconds to remember that he acquired the flash drive from one of the lockers. Jimmy finished changing and then placed a laptop from the back seat into his lap. He powered it on. He inserted the flash drive and opened its root file. Pictures and videos of Jane Barnett littered the drive. Most were taken without her knowledge. A folder labeled under skirt contained footage of hidden camera shots under her skirt. This man was a creep.
“Did they do any screening before hiring these clowns?” He mumbled to himself.
Another folder labeled Sloan drew his attention. He almost missed it between the Sleeping and Slutty Dress folders. He opened it and a few gigabytes worth of low quality video studied Mark Sloan incognito. Christopher narrated some of them as he recorded hidden conversations and strange behavior by Sloan. Something familiar caught Jimmy’s eye and he paused the video. A Tricon tattoo was on his neck, normally hidden by the collar of his shirt.
“Yup, here’s our mole.” He spoke to himself.
Jimmy wondered why any of this wasn’t reported, especially after Taliah went missing...went missing. Shit, he looked at the detailed information on all of the files. The most recent one was a month ago. He opened the LookOut Software and entered the ip address of Jane’s computer, instantly hacking into it. Even though the internet servers had been down for years, the Veil and the Highwaymen were on the Root Network, established a year ago by a colony long dead in Great Britain. It allowed shared communications but at a low bandwidth.
Jimmy found the sharedrive and located the Timecard folder. Christopher Baites hadn’t been in to work for a month. Wasn’t that a red flag for Taliah’s attempted kidnapping? Upon further research, he located Christopher Baites’ death certificate with a cause of death listed as blunt trauma to the skull.
“Sounds like murder.” He spoke softly to himself.
He dug a little deeper and retrieved a security report stating that he was found at the bottom of a stairwell at his apartment with a high alcohol content in his blood system.
“A little convenient.” He mumbled.
Nothing further about Christopher Baites was in the Root Network. He logged out and shut down the
laptop by closing it.
Jimmy pondered long and hard about the lab and its workers. Why were Christopher’s personal belongings still in the locker and in the desk? He had been dead for a month. Maybe they hadn’t had time to clear out his things with all of the recent drama or maybe there was an investigation being conducted concerning the relationship of his sudden death and Taliah’s disappearance. That could explain the tidiness of the locker and why everything was labeled CB. Shit, had he just interfered with an investigation? He considered something and opened the laptop again. He launched the flash drive and studied each picture looking for signs of CB written on any of his personal gear. After viewing an overabundance of intimate shots from hidden photos, Jimmy could quite possibly identify Dr. Barnett naked wearing a mask. Finally, he located a picture in the Sleeping folder. Christopher took a selfie uncomfortably close to Dr. Barnett while she was sleeping on her desk. In his front coat pocket was a pen labeled with a CB. He exited the flash drive and removed it from the computer.
“This guy’s too much.”
Jimmy examined the flash drive in his hand while turning it with his fingers. “I guess that ruled out the investigation theory.” Jimmy’s fingernail caught an edge of a cap and the other end of the flash drive revealed another male usb connection. It was double sided! He pushed the other end inside the laptop and something began installing itself on his computer. He struggled to read what it was as each file passed through the transfer dialog box. NIOX.exe was installing itself. After several minutes, it asked for a password. He tried to remember Mark Sloan’s password but could not remember every number or letter. He typed in Jane_Barnett on a whim and it was rejected.
“Shit, maybe there is a code written on the other side.” He spoke to himself. He removed the flash drive and reinserted the other end back into it. The NIOX software extracted all of the data from the drive and installed it onto his computer.
“Fuck! I don’t want that shit on my computer.” He blurted.
When the dialog box closed, the password window disappeared. Ten windows opened revealing a live video feed of different rooms. All but one of them had a female occupant. Some were sleeping while others were pacing the room. The walls were all white and padded. The room was maybe twenty feet by twenty feet in size. Each occupant wore an all-white outfit that resembled hospital scrubs. A chat box popped up in the top left corner. BlackMamba86 sent a message.
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i’m still alive ;)>>
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i know everything i need to know
about who u r and what ur intentions r.
lol. in fact, u’ve provided us with the
location of a miss taliah banks.
our tenth room will be filled soon ;)>>
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u talking about? what rooms
and who r those people?>>
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The burning electronic smell returned.
“Shit!” Jimmy spat, opened the door to the car, and tossed the laptop out of it. It exploded sending pieces of it everywhere. Fortunately, only a few shards of plastic cut their way into Jimmy’s face.
Chapter 21
They’re Coming to Get You Taliah!
A scream awoke Taliah from a whimsical dream where she was a queen in charge of a kingdom where there were no more Azrael. As her eyes opened, a hand covered her mouth. Her eyes widened and she looked to see who it was.
“Shh.” François attempted to quiet a potential scream. He removed it when she did not.
“Was that Eleanor?” She asked.
“The old lady should have been in her bed.” François answered, His voice was serious.
“What’s going on François?” She asked.
“She must have found a dead body in the kitchen.”
“How do you know that?” She scowled. “Who did you kill?”
“An assassin sent to kill me and take you.” He noticed a sound at her window. “Shhh...Stay quiet. Let me take care of this.”
François entered the shadows of the room and moved silently towards the window. A man tried to climb through it. He had a pistol in his hand trained towards the shadows of the room. Once his feet touched the floor, another man was climbing through the window behind him. The moonlight revealed detail about them that alarmed Taliah. Their eyes were like François’. She turned to see where François was and could not see him. Had he left her? What the hell? She heard the sound of the second person stepping on the floor and turned to see how close they were. However, both were nowhere to be found. Her breathing quickened along with her heartrate.
The door to her room creaked. François was dragging two bodies out of the room. He glanced up at Taliah and urged her to stay quiet with an index finger to his lips. She nodded her head and searched for her backpack. She retrieved a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt, a pair of socks and some gym shoes from the bag. Taliah dressed, grabbed both pistols that were on the ground near the window and placed them in her bag. She quickly flung her backpack on and followed François.
“What’s going on? How did they find me?” She whispered.
“We will discuss this later. Are you ready to go?” He asked.
“I guess. I’d like to say goodbye to Eleanor but...”
“Oui, we don’t have time for that.”
“Will she be okay? Are they going to kill the Duvereaux’s?”
“I am not sure Taliah. They were sent by them?”
“They what?” Taliah snapped.
“Quiet!”
François pointed behind her and shoved both bodies in a linen closet nearby. Three more men were travelling the hallway. François flipped on the lights blinding them. Before Taliah could get a good look at them, they were dead on the ground without heads. She caught a quick glimpse of a short bladed sword being sheathed behind François. He beckoned her and she jogged over.
“Why are they coming for me?” She asked. She was startled from one of the bodies seizing and stumbled into François’ arms.
“You’re special, Taliah. It’s your blood.”
“How does everyone know about that?”
“You have a mole back home, someone reporting everything about you to Tricon.”
“Why haven’t we found that guy yet? It’s why I was taken in the first place but I didn’t think that they were still tracking me.”
“Jimmy’s working that out.”
“That’s why he left?”
“Oui, but he wanted to keep you locked up in that stuffy old house. I wanted to see how far Tricon has their web woven.”
“So you brought me here as bait?” Taliah ruffled her nose.
“I suspected that the Duvereaux’s continued their wealth through certain allies but I wasn’t sure. I assure you that you have not been in any danger.”
“What about these guys?” She pointed at the three corpses on the ground next to them. “They have eyes like you and Jimmy. What’s going on?”
“Tricon acquired files from the Veil of the Five Daggers containing information regarding the process that made us. We had a mole within our organization as well. I made sure that he would never do it again.” François kicked one of the heads near his foot towards the bodies.
“Like that?” Taliah nodded towards the bodies.
“Like that. Your mole will be dealt with in the same way.” He heard a noise and paused. “Let’s get moving.”
François led Taliah towards the car outside. Before they could exit the house, Eleanor hollered at them.
“They’ll find you. They will never give up once they know what you look like. Run if you want to.” Eleanor spat.
“I’m not becoming another prisoner, Eleanor. They can try but I will fight them no matter the cost.” Taliah enforced. T
hey opened the door.
“They are going to kill us. You do know that François.”
“Oui, you shouldn’t have contacted them Ellie.” François scowled. Taliah gave him a mean look.
“It was his idea, to host the dinner. I was against it. I knew it would be our last meal. These people, they’re everywhere and don’t respond well to failure.”
“I thought you said that...?” Taliah asked.
“Don’t worry yourself about them, Taliah. They will have to answer to their own decisions in life. Get in the car.” François darted towards the car pulling Taliah along.
“They’ll catch you and put you in a cage! You hear me? You’ll never get aw....” Eleanor’s shouts were cut short by a gunshot to the back of the head. By this time, François and Taliah were speeding down the driveway at 30mph.
“Christ! Did you see that” Taliah was gazing out the window and witnessed a muzzle flash.
“She made a deal with the devil and the devil collected.” François answered.
They weaved through the houses and attracted gunfire from dozens of guards drawn to their presence. He activated a button under the dashboard sending a signal to the gates ahead to open.
“What’s that thing?” Taliah asked.
“Kind of like a garage door opener for the gates up ahead. I removed it from Frederic’s Lincoln while they were sleeping. Those that fail to plan, plan to fail.”
François gave Taliah a sly grin as they barreled through the gate at 80mph. The guards dove out of the way after their bullets ricocheted off the car’s armor plating.
The gunfire and all of the commotion drew herds of Azrael from miles away. François did not bother closing the gates and watched in his rearview mirror as the Azrael funneled through the gate towards the guards. Taliah noticed them in the woods and on the road. She followed them as they disappeared within the gates. A sharp left turn brought them out of view and she turned around.
The Azrael (Book 4): Tricon Page 12