Thirty seconds later, two authentication exchanges occurred to reconnect the clients. Gragg started breathing again. He now had an encrypted hash that Asleap was working the dictionary to decrypt. He was on his way.
Gragg leaned his driver’s seat back and stared at the ceiling, wondering if he’d ever get out of here alive.
Chapter 17:// Succubus
Jon Ross hopped out at the front entrance to Alcyone Insurance. He opened the rear passenger door of Sebeck’s Dodge Durango and grabbed his laptop bag from the backseat. It was Sebeck’s personal car and reeked of his aftershave. The interior was immaculate, devoid of personal touches like Kleenex holders or errant CDs. It had the brutal cleanliness of a military barracks, and by revealing nothing about Sebeck it revealed a lot.
Ross looked from the backseat into the rearview mirror to make eye contact with Sebeck. “Well, Pete, again, my condolences on Deputy Larson. And I wish you the best of luck on the case.”
Sebeck just stared at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Sebeck’s cell phone started ringing.
Ross slung his laptop bag over his shoulder. “It means that I’m done. The Feds have this under control.”
“Don’t even try that bullshit on me, Jon. Go get some sleep.” He motioned for Ross to get out, and he unfolded his phone as he pulled away from the curb. He smiled grimly as he saw Ross flip him off in the rearview mirror. Then he answered the phone. “Sebeck.”
A woman’s voice said, “Nothing can kill you, can it, Pete?”
He felt his pulse accelerate. It was her.When had he last heard her voice? How long ago? This phone line is tapped.“Cheryl, I’m heading to the office. Call me there.”
The line went dead. Sebeck stowed his phone, then drove a couple of blocks. He pulled over in a residential area, then looked in the rearview mirror. No one watching. He got out and opened the tailgate of the Durango. Sebeck reached down into the spare tire well and came up with a bright red prepaid, disposable cell phone. He closed the tailgate, looked around again, then got back in the Durango and plugged the phone into his car lighter. Moments later the little phone chirped, and he grabbed it.
“God, it’s great to hear your voice. Things have been crazy. We lost two men today. I’ve got more in the hospital.”
“I know. I caught the news in the terminal at O’Hare.”
“You’re in Chicago?” He knew better than to ask too much.
“No. Westwood.”
“At the company suite?”
“You’ll come meet me.”
“Oh God, baby.” Sebeck sighed. “This is a reallybad time. This Daemon thing is-”
“You survived, Pete. I’ll make you remember why you want to be alive.”
That she would. Sebeck was quiet for a moment. Cheryl Lanthrop was the most beautiful woman he had ever been with. Her predatory sexuality made it even harder to resist. It was unfair that he should be expectedto resist a woman like her. He had convinced himself that even his wife would understand.
Still, it was a bad time to disappear. But they could reach him by phone, couldn’t they? The Feds would probably be busy tearing apart CyberStorm’s network all night. And Sobol’s estate? Hell, there were hundreds of police surrounding it. If he got caught, no man alive would think less of him.
He hesitated. “I’m just…” He couldn’t find words.
“Only you know what you want, Pete.”
He already knew he was going. He was someone else entirely with her. His responsibilities faded away. His goals were here and now-the conquest of her. And that’s what it required: conquest.
“I’m on my way.”
*
Wilshire Boulevard between Beverly Hills and Westwood Village was a canyon of tony high-rises one row deep. The buildings seemed out of place in Los Angeles, as though someone had grafted a piece of Manhattan’s Upper East Side to L.A.‘s suburban grid. This was the location of Cheryl’s corporate condo.
Cheryl was some sort of medical executive. In one of his fits of curiosity about her, Sebeck had run a background check. She had a surprisingly benign past; good premed education, clean credit, no criminal record. Her employer sold and installed complex medical diagnostic systems, and she traveled the world consulting on multi-million-dollar deals. She had money-the type of money Sebeck could only dream about. And she had perks, like the corporate suite at this copper-roofed faux French provincial tower.
Sebeck still had a parking card, so he was able to avoid the doorman. His face was still in the news, and he wasn’t anxious to be seen in the vicinity.
As he exited the elevator on the fifteenth floor, he peered both ways down the hall to be sure no one was in sight. As he approached Cheryl’s door, Sebeck noticed it was slightly open. He looked around warily, then nudged it in. Cheryl stood beneath a halogen spotlight near the entryway. She wore a black cocktail dress with spaghetti straps. Black stockings with garters, visible below the hemline, wrapped her long legs and shapely, shoeless feet. Her auburn hair sparkled in the light. She smirked and curled a finger at him. She was even more beautiful than he remembered. Worth losing everything for.
Sebeck moved toward her, closing the door behind him. He knew better than to expect consolation from her. What they shared was different. Just before he reached her, she pirouetted and ducked her head low, bringing a roundhouse kick straight at his head. He saw it coming and grabbed her leg just in time. The impact sent him back against the wall.
She followed it with an open-hand karate punch toward his face. He ducked back, releasing her leg. “No bruising! Cheryl-”
“Shhhh.” She put a painted fingernail to his lips.
Sebeck took the moment to grab her wrist, twisting her arm around her back. He brandished handcuffs seemingly out of thin air. She quickly tried to clear his legs out from under him, but he blocked her legs. Their shins slammed together, and he bore down on her to fling her to the floor. He felt her strong, lean body resisting, and then finally throwing him over her. He landed hard on the carpeted floor.
Struggling for breath, he managed to hiss out, “We’ve got to be more quiet-”
She let out a tigress growl, kicked the handcuffs away, and landed a few vicious punches to his abdomen. His tightened stomach muscles dampened the blows.
She smiled playfully and lightly bit his ear. “You goddamned pig.” She grabbed him in a headlock and started a chokehold.
Perfume mixed with sweat filled his nostrils. Adrenaline filled his veins. If this wasn’t love, then it was something nearly as good. He felt his consciousness begin to fade. He smacked his open hands against her ears, and she dropped the chokehold in an instant, grabbing her head in pain.
He rolled over, kneeling next to her. “Baby, did I hurt you?”
She looked up, one eye and half a mischievous smile visible behind a curtain of auburn hair. He saw his mistake too late, and her open hand shot like a jackhammer into his solar plexus. He doubled over in pain as she leaped over him, moving for the handcuffs.
She had a thing for cops-and he was probably one of several she had flings with around the country. He didn’t care. She was a sexual hand grenade with the pin pulled out, but he could never manage to resist her. Whatever this said about him didn’t matter. Cheryl was here, and the whole world could go screw itself.
He heard the clinking of the handcuffs coming up behind him, and he swept one hand back, grabbing her elbow. He shot the other arm up and grabbed her beautiful hair. It was a cheap shot, but effective. He made sure to grab enough of her hair to use as a rope. He twisted it tighter and finally yanked her head down toward his. He felt her struggling, and her open, pouting lips brushed against his.
He twisted her arm and pulled her around in front of him. Now she was really struggling, but he used all his prodigious strength to dominate her. All her skill had not been enough. He had mastered her. He heard her moan softly as he wrenched the handcuffs from her hand. In a moment he had forced her to her knees and slapped the cuffs ove
r one wrist. She struggled mightily one last time, but he forced her head back down using her hair as a leash. The cuffs went over the second wrist, and he felt her sigh and settle back onto her knees.
He came up behind her and smelled her perfumed hair. Her lips brushed against his cheek.
“Is there a problem, officer?”
*
Across Wilshire Boulevard, directly opposite the building, a camera lens in a darkened room reflected the streetlights. The camera clicked and whirred as Sebeck and the woman passionately kissed.
Anji Anderson raised her eye from the camera lens. She let an aroused breath escape as though she had been holding it for a while. She had no idea why The Voice felt this was news, but it had already been worth the trip.
Chapter 18:// Abyss
Wrecked county and federal police vehicles came under the glare of a mercury vapor searchlight. The bomb disposal robot’s arm panned to reveal more carnage. A thousand feet away, a spectator in the control trailer whistled softly at the video image. A murmur went through the assembled agents. Special Agent Ellis Garvey released his hold on the joystick and awaited instructions.
The FBI’s Critical Incidence Response Group (or CIRG) had taken over operations for the siege of Sobol’s estate, but Steven Trear still had nominal control of strategy. He knew that he had to get this situation under control quickly, or it would be taken from him just as he had taken it from Decker.
Trear put a hand on Garvey’s shoulder. “Bring us up to the mansion’s front door.”
The lawn mower-sized robot turned in place on rubberized treads and started moving across a blood-streaked debris field of plastic car bumpers and shattered glass, toward the mansion’s front steps. Along the way the robot passed a crushed and twisted version of itself. It was the robot brought in by Guerner’s team the day before. Garvey’s camera lingered on the image. Ominously symbolic. Trear cleared his throat, and Garvey nudged the joystick again, sending the robot forward.
He halted the robot at the base of the mansion’s front steps and raised its camera arms-shining the bright lights into the yawning, black maw of the doorway. The door was still wedged open.
A score of federal agents in the command trailer craned their necks to see the monitors.
Trear nodded to Garvey, who took a breath and eased the left joystick forward. The little robot’s motors whined as it inched up the stone steps.
Before long it moved warily through the front door and into the foyer, where some type of fearsome technology had assaulted Guerner and his team. Washington wanted more information. The robot’s camera arm panned the room. Glass from a shattered vase littered the tiled floor-along with vomit and specks of blood.
Someone in the back muttered, “Jesus.”
One of the bomb squad guys leaned in. “Look for transceivers or sensors on the walls.”
Garvey started panning the walls with the camera lights.
It looked like a classic Mediterranean, but there was a lot more than paintings and sculpture alcoves along the winding stairs. Near the ceiling an array of mysterious, white plastic sensors lined the walls.
Trear called out. “Guys, what are we looking at?”
A deafening silence filled the darkened trailer. In the glow of the camera monitors Trear looked for Allen Wyckoff, an FBI senior systems analyst who always seemed to know what he was talking about. Although there were bomb squad agents and a couple of computer forensics experts on hand, this wasn’t a bomb and it wasn’t software. It looked like a system. “Wyckoff. What am I looking at here?”
Wyckoff was just a silhouette in the darkness, except for the lenses of his round glasses, which reflected the monitor images. “Those are standard motion detectors…also what looks to be infrared sensors…I have no idea what thatis… The round pod might be a transmitter of some sort.” He turned toward Trear, and the monitor reflections disappeared from his glasses. “Sir, we’re going to need to analyze this video. There’s a lot of technology there I’m not familiar with.”
Trear looked around at the assembled experts, who were silently nodding in the dark. “So no one can tell me how the bomb disposal team was incapacitated? No guesses?”
The agents exchanged glances in the shadows.
Garvey ventured, “Should I keep going?”
Trear nodded. “Get us into the server room.”
Garvey took another breath and eased the joystick forward again.
The robot moved easily across the floor toward the center doorway at the back of the foyer. The mercury light revealed a long hall with stone tile flooring and embroidered rugs. Mission-style furniture braced the walls here and there along the length of the hall.
One of Garvey’s team spoke from the console nearby while examining blueprints. “We want to take the next hall on the right. Then it’s the second door on the right.”
“Got it. Turning.” Garvey turned the robot in place and shined the camera lights down a short side hall. It led into the recreation room toward the back of the house. Garvey panned the hallway, examining the walls and ceilings. More of the mysterious sensors lined the walls. It was dark except for the lights on the robot.
“Cellar door, second on the right. It should lead down to the server room.”
Garvey brought the robot forward, then moved to a second set of controls to activate the robot’s arm. The mechanical hand slid into camera view and swiveled once to align with the lever door handle on the cellar door. The arm moved forward, grabbed the door handle, then depressed it.
Suddenly the camera image jolted wildly and shouts of alarm filled the trailer. In a moment all the screens were filled with snow.
Trear pushed forward. “What just happened?”
Garvey’s hands hovered over the useless controls, his mouth open in shock. He turned. “I don’t know. I…”
“Do we have any signal from the robot?”
Garvey and his assistant checked the console and shook their heads. Everyone was talking again.
Trear shouted, “Quiet down! Everyone shut up.” He turned back to Garvey. “Play back the video-in slow motion.”
Garvey nodded, then rewound the video. All the monitors flickered, then a still image came up again: the mansion side hall.
“Roll it forward slowly.”
On-screen, frame by frame, the robotic arm grabbed the door handle and pushed down.
“There.”
Garvey stopped the image.
There was an unmistakable gap in the floor toward the bottom of the frame. The floor looked like it was opening up.
“Okay, advance it slowly.”
Garvey hit a button.
The gap expanded. In a quick succession of frames, the door handle pulled from the robot’s grip, and the entire machine slid down a chute that opened beneath it. Its mercury lights illuminated the dark hole, revealing a cinderblock-lined pit-the bottom of which was filled with water. Successive video images showed the water washing up onto its cameras and the robot shorting out. The entire process took about one and a half seconds.
Sidebar conversations filled the trailer.
Trear clasped a hand on Garvey’s shoulder. “It’s all right. That’s why we have robots.” Trear looked unruffled, almost serene.
He turned to the assembled agents. “I think we’ve established that there’s no power in the house.” He pointed to some techs sitting at a frequency-scanning console. “And there’s no radio transmissions emanating from the house, correct?”
The techs nodded.
Trear continued. “What we’re looking at here is a simple pit trap. Sobol’s high-tech weaponry is down. He’s gone medieval on us. That’s great news.”
Garvey turned from the robot command console. “That’s our last robot. We’ll have to send back to L.A. for another one.”
Trear nodded. “Bring in several. Fly them in if you have to. But we need to get our hands on Sobol’s personal computers as soon as possible.”
There was
silence for a moment in the trailer.
Garvey hesitated, then asked, “Meaning that we…?”
“Send in the Hostage Rescue Team. Have them go in as far as the pit. I want the area around the cellar entrance ramped over by the time we get the extra robots here.”
Wyckoff looked surprised. “Sir, are you certain that’s a good idea?”
“Certain? No, not certain. But Sobol’s home computers might hold the key to destroying this monster. That’s what we came to do. So let’s do it.”
Everyone murmured in agreement.
Someone in back asked, “What about the Hummer, sir?”
“Pull out the wreckage and ship it down to the L.A. lab. Cover it with a tarpaulin before pulling it out. I don’t want to see any more pictures of the ‘death machine’ on the front page tomorrow.” He clapped his hands once. “Let’s get moving, people. The world’s watching.”
*
Special Agent Michael Kirchner sat poring over financial documents with five other agents in an unassuming accountant’s office in Thousand Oaks. The desks were littered with open folders, receipts, tax returns, and ledgers. Another agent was busy imaging computer hard drives. Kirchner, a CPA and a tax attorney, believed that he and his team did more to fight crime than any field office in the bureau. Organized crime couldn’t accomplish much without money.
They had spent the last eight hours scrutinizing the detailed financial history of Matthew Sobol. It was quite a trail. Sobol was an officer in thirty-seven corporations. He had three sole proprietorships, two partnerships, eleven LLCs-and a slew of international business corporations, holding companies, and offshore trusts. Tons of financial activity over the last two years, with equipment purchases, wire transfers, professional and consulting fees. It was a rat’s nest. The finances of the rich usually were.
Kirchner reviewed a report of the largest capital expenditures. Technical components from the looks of it. Purchased by one company but shipped to Sobol’s Thousand Oaks address.
Kirchner looked up at his partner, Lou Galbraith, who was sifting through filing cabinets nearby. “Lou, you lost money in fuel cells a few years back, didn’t you?”
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