by Bob Blink
When he arrived, he found everything intact, but surprisingly, Miss Parker was not to be found. The cell was still securely closed and locked, and there was no way she could have gotten out, yet the cell was clearly empty.
Impossible, he thought, wondering how he was going to explain this. When he returned to the guard post, he saw that all of the monitors were operating normally.
"She didn't escape," Tom Burrows said to his partner a short time later.
"Then where is she?" Duke Harmon asked.
"Damned if I know," Tom admitted. "The monitoring equipment other than the video was not affected. The door to her cell was never unlocked, nor did the door open. There is no way she could have slipped through the external security. The video right up until the cameras shut down shows her sitting glumly on her cot. Logic says she should still be in the cell."
"But she's not," Duke pointed out.
"No she isn't. That has been conclusively verified by more than a handful of agents."
"What was that flash you reported?"
With the cameras down there was no record of what Burrows had seen, and more than one other agent had questioned that he had really seen it.
"I can't explain that, but it was there," Tom replied. "It couldn't have been intended as a diversion, as with the video out, no one normally would have seen it. Also, there should be something to show what caused it, but we can find nothing to suggest a cause."
"Didn't that report say something about the secretary claiming Miss Chou indicated that the body of Mr. Johnson burned up in that supposed attack?"
"There was no fire here," Tom protested. "The blankets on the cot are not the least bit scorched. I simply don't know what the flash of light might have been, but it wasn't any kind of fire."
"Well, she has to be somewhere," Harmon protested.
"I'm open to ideas," Tom replied. "I've never heard of anything like this happening."
"Forensics is checking the cell?"
Tom nodded. He glanced at his watch. It was only a few minutes past 9 AM. It seemed like it should be late in the day, but they'd been on stakeout since midnight. The Forensics team should have started on the cell within the last half hour.
"Okay then. They'll figure it out," Harmon said confidently. He pulled out a small phone that Tom recognized as having belonged to Monica Parker. They'd taken it from her purse when they catalogued her belongings.
"I've been having a look at this," he said.
"Miss Parker's phone," he said.
"Not the number she has registered to her, but a cheap throwaway. I was surprised to find numbers programmed into it."
Harmon pushed a sheet of paper across the desk toward the younger agent. A list of first names and an associated number was shown.
"We can guess who some of these people are," Tom said. "Pam must be Pam Chou. She must have had one of these phones as well, although we never found it. It must have burned up in the fire. It was pretty intense where it started. Mark could be the Mark Wilson that Miss Parker mentioned in the car, and Jessie would be Jessie Carter. Those two are supposedly in government intelligence of some sort."
"And Jerry is Jerry Marshall," Harmon finished for him. "That leaves two more unidentified names. We don't know who Glen and Steph are, but we have numbers for them. Whatever these people are up to, they decided that they needed to go to unlisted phones. But now that we have the numbers we can track where they are. Get someone tracing these people right away. If we can grab one of them, we might get the remaining names. I'll see what I can find on the names we do have, and we can send crews to pick them up. I've already sent a crew to her residence to see what else we might find. Maybe we'll get lucky and they are at work believing they are safe. They might know Monica has disappeared, and might not. She had the phone powered off, so hopefully they are unaware we grabbed her."
Tom picked up the list that Harmon had passed to him. It seemed too easy, but then sometimes a big break came this way.
"I'll see to it." he said, and stood and headed off toward the communications center.
Chapter 15
Tuesday 10:34 AM
The buzzing refused to stop. Mark couldn't determine where it was coming from, but it was pulling him out of a warm and comfortable place and he wished it would cease. By the time the annoying sounds finally ended, he was partially awake, and realized it had been his cell phone that was the source of the disturbance, something that should have been obvious to him immediately. A bit too much to drink last night, he concluded, trying to clear his vision and mind , which remained a bit slow this morning. At least he assumed it was morning. The light outside the heavy curtain suggested daytime.
There were other interesting sensations to be explored, now that he was awake. He wasn't alone in the bed, which a brief glance suggested was in a rather mediocre motel room somewhere. He was wrapped around the soft silky limbs of a warm and, from what he could ascertain, very nicely shaped female. He searched his memories for who it might be and how he'd come to be here. The last thing he could recall he and....
"Jessie?" he asked cautiously.
"Ummph," an incoherent voice mumbled back at him, but he recognized the sounds well enough to confirm his suspicions.
The impact of his realization that he was in bed with the Homeland agent was just sinking in, as memories of how they'd come to be here and of their physical encounters, not one but several, the night before when her phone started buzzing.
"Damn it," she muttered, and a shapely arm snaked out from under the covers and snared the offending phone.
Mark thought she was going to pitch it across the room, but instead a tousled head appeared as she scanned the readout to see who it could be.
"It's Jerry again," she said somewhat disgusted. "What time is it?"
"Mid morning," he replied after a glance at the red letters on the cheap clock. "About ten-thirty," he added for precision.
She pressed the button that put the phone on speaker.
"What is it Jerry?" she asked a bit impatiently. "Where are you?"
The voice that came back was tinny due to the marginal speaker in the cheap phone, but Mark was able to tell it was Jerry, and sense the panic in his voice.
"I'm in my car. I just left work a few minutes ago. I've been there all night. I told you that's where I was going. I was about to go home and was returning to my office to get my coat when I over heard them talking to my secretary."
"Heard who, Jerry?"
Mark was half paying attention to the conversation, but his mind was also distracted by the smooth expanse of bare skin on display. The covers had fallen down around Jessie's waist and he could see her entire nude back, as well as a substantial portion of a surprising large and well-shaped breast. From his memories upon awakening, he was certain that the rest of her was equally unclothed. Recalling their exertions of the night before, he was a bit surprised at the effect the view was having on him physically.
"A couple of FBI agents are looking for me. Agents Harmon and Burrows in case the names mean anything to you," he added. "Apparently I am wanted for questioning. I told you this was going to get out of hand."
"Never heard of them," she replied absently, trying to put his information into context.
"They are after you?" Mark asked before Jessie could speak. "What for?"
"I didn't hang around to hear the rest of the conversation. I panicked, and ran out of the building and am now driving around, uncertain where to go. Now I'm starting to think I should have gone in and turned myself over to them. After all, I haven't really committed any crime. Well beyond failing to report a killing that apparently didn't happen."
"This has to tie back to Pam," Jessie said.
"She turned us all in, just like she said she would," Jerry said. "And someone killed her for it," he added. "They probably think we are responsible for that."
"This is getting away from us," Mark noted. "Perhaps he is right."
Jessie shook her head.
"The longer we delay, the more trouble we are going to be in," he wailed.
"I doubt that. As you said, we haven't committed any crime, and you can claim you were unaware that you were being sought. I assume no one saw you listening in?"
"I don't think so."
"Good, then simply stay out of sight and meet us later. I'd suggest you disable your phone for now. Pull the battery. They might have learned about it. Reactivate it for five minutes at 2 PM. If I have something to tell you or a change in plans, I can call you then. Understand?"
"Yeah, but I'd like to ditch the damn thing and simply face this head on," he said.
"Hold off a bit longer," Jessie encouraged him. "Maybe that's what we'll decide later today. Things are moving out from under us far too quickly. We still don't know who is behind this and what the goal is."
She hung up among Jerry's cursing.
"He's going to cave soon," Mark warned.
"I know," Jessie said. "But hopefully not before the meeting. Come on, we'd better move. If the Feds have our names, they might have the phones as well."
She pushed back the covers and jumped out of bed.
"You should be pretty familiar with the equipment after the workout you gave it last night," she said dryly seeing him looking intently at the vision she presented.
"Yeah, well," Mark stammered as he stared at the delightfully naked image before his eyes. He hadn't realized just how stunning Jessie was before now.
Jessie glanced at the sheet that still partially covered Mark and grinned.
"No time now Romeo," she said. "Five minute showers and we are out of here. Give the others a call and tell them when and where to meet."
Hearing the water running in the bathroom, Mark did as directed. Monica was still unreachable, making him wonder if she was the one that had contacted the FBI after somehow learning of Pam's death, or if they'd learn she met a fate similar to Pam's. She'd hadn't been fully involved the last time they'd met. Glen was at work, and hadn't heard a thing. He was surprised and a bit concerned by the fact Jerry was being sought by the FBI. He agreed to take the rest of the day off, and would meet them at the designated spot that afternoon, and accepted Mark's warning their phones were likely compromised.
Stephanie was a different matter. Even though she'd indicated she was disabling her cell and dropping out of contact, she answered immediately. Like Glen, she knew nothing of an FBI search, and said she'd have known if they were at her work looking for her. Security at the facility where she worked was taken very seriously. Even so, she planned to carefully check and see if something was happening she somehow wasn't aware of. More importantly, she had news.
"My friend has had a closer look at my phone," she said. "He has given me a copy of the modified code, but says he has no idea how to determine what the changes mean. This phone and its software isn't something our company created, and so he has no access to the source code and what it was designed to do. It is very unlikely the manufacturer would release that if asked, without knowing what was going on. So unless that friend of yours can do more, this is probably a dead end."
Mark knew that Fred could probably do a lot more. Access to the software in the various phones was something that NSA had made a point of gathering in the last few years as part of their extensive monitoring program of cell traffic. Fred would be able to get the basic code without raising any questions. Their project would even justify it. As to reverse engineering the modifications, only Fred would be able to tell him what his chances of success might be. That meant a face-to-face with his co-worker after he retrieved the code from Steph.
"Understand," Mark consoled Steph. "My people are better supported for that kind of task. It isn't that far from the kind of thing we frequently do," he admitted.
He could almost sense her shaking her head as he spoke.
"He also had a much closer look at the strange material in the phone. It's much more extensive than he originally thought, and very carefully laid in place. Apparently there are thin strands he can barely see that touch upon multiple areas of the phone. It is likely every aspect of the phone operation can be accessed, and he wonders if the main glob is some additional capability that wouldn't normally be there. He has run some tests and can sense some structure in the form of varying color throughout the main glob, but doesn't have normal access to the equipment that might tell him more. He wants to hang onto it in hopes some other task will give him an opportunity to get near the test gear that might tell him more. What do I do? Let him keep it or bring it along?"
Mark considered the options. Fred wouldn't be much help with the hardware, and getting it examined by anyone else would require authorization and a lot of explanation behind the device. He decided there was little chance of that happening. If something developed, they could always retrieve it from Steph's friend.
"Let him keep it for now," Mark replied finally. "I don't see anyway to get someone I know to look at it."
"Okay then," Steph agreed. "I'm going offline so I won't be reachable until our meeting. I'll leave a voice mail on your phone if I discover I'm being sought. I am assuming you won't be leaving your phone activated either."
After saying their goodbyes, Mark pulled the battery from the cheap throw away, pocketing it and the phone. He looked around the room where he and Jessie had spent the night. It was nothing like the nice room they'd had available at the other hotel, but this had been more secure. Jessie hadn't wanted to use her special credit card. If they were being sought, Homeland had the means of finding out what card she had used at the hotel, and would be able to trace its use anywhere else. They had pooled their cash, and driving around in his Explorer had spotted this third-rate motel and decided it would serve their needs.
"Problems?" Jessie said, stepping into the room with a towel wrapped around her.
"Monica is still absent," he said. "That's a worry. Both Steph and Glen will meet with us. As far as they can tell, no one is looking for them just yet, but both plan to make themselves scarce for now."
"Maybe we should scout Monica's place before we go to the meeting," she suggested. "We can talk about it later. Your turn to shower," she said, and dropped the towel as she prepared to climb back into yesterday's clothes.
Chapter 16
"Which way?" Mark asked as he struggled to get his bearings in a part of the city he was totally unfamiliar with.
"Turn left at the next intersection," Jessie directed through a mouthful of sausage croissant that they had grabbed for breakfast at the first fast food outlet they had come across. She held a cup of marginal coffee in her left hand and watched the streets as they maneuvered through the morning traffic.
Mark turned the Explorer in the indicated direction. He had wolfed down two of the sandwiches earlier, then washed them down by chugging a bottle of water. Jessie was a bit more refined with her eating. He looked in her direction. If she had any discomfort with their lovemaking the night before she hid it well.
They had disabled their own phones, and at the moment had no means of contacting others in the team. They hadn't been certain at first whether they were on the FBI wanted list, but had verified that when they'd stopped for the food.
"Mark, what have you done?" Tammy asked worriedly when he called her at her office via the landline. "You wouldn't believe what's going on here. The FBI came in about an hour ago. They are looking for you, claiming you are being sought as a person of interest in a homicide. They had Fred in a back room for fifteen minutes grilling him to see if he had any way to contact you."
"It's really complicated," Mark had replied. "But I haven't hurt anyone," he added to reassure her. "I'
m with a couple others they are looking for, and we are trying to get information to prove that we are victims."
"Shouldn't you let the FBI do that?" she'd asked. "That's their job."
"As I said, it's kind of complicated. I need to speak with Fred. Is there anyway you can get him to your phone without arousing anyone's suspicions?"
Tammy was silent for a long moment.
"Could I get in trouble?" she asked.
Mark wanted to lie and tell her she'd be fine.
"Possibly, if they find out. I'm innocent, but at the moment I'm wanted. That means you'd be helping a fugitive. They could give you a rough time."
He expected her to hang up, but after a long pause, she said, "Hang on. I know where he went when the FBI was done talking to him. This could take a few minutes."
"Thanks Tammy. You're really special."
Even as he said it, meaning it, but also realizing what it meant in light of his activities with Jessie the night before. He felt a bit cheap, but then realized Tammy had set down the phone and probably hadn't heard what he said.
Mark was beginning to wonder if Tammy had gone to the FBI and they were tracing the call when a familiar voice came on.
"You're in a heap of trouble," Fred said. "Why do I have the feeling that you won't be back like you promised to finish this job. I'm just waiting for Abe to come in and trash everything I did over the weekend and assign someone new who won't listen to my ideas."
"Fred, I . . ."
"I assume this all has something to do with why you were really out last Thursday?"
Well, Mark had always known that Fred was odd, not stupid.
"Yeah, as a matter of fact."
"What do you need? I assume you aren't calling just to chat."
"I have some odd code, that I need someone to have a look at. You are the only person I know who might be able to make sense of it. But we'd need to meet. I warn you, that puts you at risk with the Feds, and with the other thing I'm involved with."