The Patrick Bowers Files - 05 - The Queen

by Steven James

  Death. Too much death.

  She found her thoughts returning to her dad’s funeral in June up in the mountains of Wyoming.

  After everyone else had left, she and Patrick had stood alone and silent by the graveside. After a while she’d whispered to him, “They say we’re never really gone as long as there’s someone to remember us.”

  A moment passed. “Maybe that’s what makes us human. What makes us unique from animals.”

  “What’s that? Remembering the dead?” Figuring out what separates humans from other animals had been sort of a big question she was dealing with at the time.

  “No, loving them enough to remember them.”

  She’d stared at the gravestone and considered his words. The broad sky stretched above her, clouds covering the sun.

  “I’ll always remember him,” she said.

  “So will I.”

  Then Patrick put his arm around her shoulder and they stood there together quietly for a long time as the sun cut through a cloud and caught hold of a mountain range on the horizon.

  And then despite herself she’d cried, and Patrick had wiped her tears away.

  “Tessa?” It was Sean. “Are you all right?”

  It took her a couple seconds to mentally refocus. “How far is it? I need to talk to him.”

  “Another thirty miles.”

  “Well, just get us there, then.” Yes, her voice was sharp with impatience but it was mostly filled with concern. She hoped Sean could tell the difference.

  “Don’t worry.” He stared determinedly at the road ahead of them. “I will.”

  38

  CIA Detainment Facility 17

  Cairo, Egypt

  4:24 a.m. Eastern European Time

  Terry Manoji sat in his wheelchair in the hospital room in which he’d been confined since the CIA transferred him to this location sometime last year.

  Because of the coma he’d been in for eight months, time was a blur, but for the last few months he’d managed to get a handle on the passage of days, because nine weeks ago one of the nurses carelessly brought her Blackberry into his room. He was in bed when he saw it poking out of her pocket, so he sat up, swung his legs from the bed as if he were going to get into his chair, but then forced himself to lose his balance and topple to the floor.

  She’d helped him back into bed.

  And hadn’t noticed what he had hidden in his hand.

  She left soon afterward without realizing that she didn’t have her phone with her.

  Although flush toilets weren’t common in the Middle East, because of his condition it was a necessity for him to have one.

  There were no surveillance cameras in his bathroom.

  Which worked in his favor.

  Once in the bathroom, he used the phone to get online.

  To get into the phone company’s site he used a little port redirection and quickly gained administrator privileges, then created a back channel so it’d be quicker getting in again later if he lost the connection or when the nurse cancelled her contract after discovering her phone was gone.

  Once in their system, he blocked the ability to trace future calls made to and from this number and climbed through the company’s primitive firewalls to get to the central processing facility. After tracing the GPS signal to find out where exactly he was, he put a stop on the GPS tracking. If the nurse or agents tried to trace it, as they undoubtably would, the phone would simply appear to be turned off.

  He was online.

  Invisible and untraceable.

  He was home.

  The internet is one big playground, and wherever there’s WiFi or a cell phone connection, a good hacker can jump on the wire, and once he’s in, he’s in. And he can go anywhere.

  An hour later, when his interrogators came to search the room for the phone, he’d already hidden it. They meticulously scoured both his room and the attached bathroom but found nothing because before they’d arrived he’d used two discarded latex gloves, tied off, to create a double-layer waterproof bag, and then placed the cell phone in the toilet bowl, shoved back in the pipe so that it wasn’t visible.

  He knew he was taking a risk that someone might flush while they were searching the room, but thankfully they hadn’t been that thorough or that careless.

  Conserving the phone’s batteries had been a concern at first. The electrical current in Egypt would be 220 VAC, which would fry the phone. However, by the make and model of the two video cameras monitoring his room he knew that they were not infrared.

  So he could work at night.

  An LED lamp that he didn’t use beside his bed had a DC converter at the plug and, by scraping off the wire’s insulation, he’d managed to create a crude way of recharging the phone by splicing the cord and using a bandage from his arm to hold the battery in place against the exposed wires.

  It wasn’t ideal by any means, and he had to be careful how much time he spent in the bathroom on the cell, but he found that charging the phone two to three times a week during the night was enough to get him through.

  Then, on November 18, through his online correspondence, he’d arranged everything with his partner after helping clear the way for her escape from prison. Then he’d contacted Abdul Razzaq Muhammad to put his own escape plan into motion.

  Since he was surveilled so closely, Terry was limited in what he could do from this room, but during his visits to the bathroom, he’d sent his partner detailed instructions on how to access the back doors he’d left in the military’s top secret JWICS network back when he was still in the employ of the NSA.

  And yes, also in the employ of the Chinese government.

  Which was actually the reason why, according to his interrogators, the CIA had pressured the San Diego Police Department to announce that he’d died while in custody.

  “As far as the rest of the world is concerned, you’re dead and buried,” the man had told him. “So we have nothing to lose keeping you here as long as we want.” Then he’d leaned forward. “Or shortening your stay if it comes to that.”

  And so, Terry fed the interrogators just enough information each week about Chinese hacking protocols to keep them coming back.

  Now he reviewed his plan.

  A distraction layered inside a distraction.

  The deal with Abdul Razzaq Muhammad had been simple—Terry would take out the target of Abdul’s choice and Abdul would transfer a rather sizable amount of money to an offshore account and send a team of militants to free him.

  According to Air Force Doctrine Document 3-12, or AFDD 3-12, released back on October 26, 2010, there are millions of attempts to hack into the US military’s computers every day. And, as Terry knew all too well, that number had only continued to rise since then.

  But a much earlier hack was the one that was going to make all the difference in his case—and was the one that, indirectly, was going to help set him free.

  On October 1, 2003, at 03:25, Chinese hackers broke into the Naval Ocean Systems Center in San Diego, California, and downloaded more than four terabytes of data.

  It gave them just the information they needed to hop onto the Department of Defense’s Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communication System.

  When the Bush Administration first became aware of the malware placed onto the JWICS by the Chinese in early 2004, they responded quickly and took steps to protect the one means of communication with nuclear weapons systems that was not connected to or dependent on the internet in any way, the only viable nonsatellite, non-web-based means of contacting submarines: extremely low frequency electromagnetic signals, emitted from a small base in northern Wisconsin—or more specifically, from the part of the base that had never been made public.

  And now, that very safety net that the military had put into place to guard against hackers was the one Terry was going to exploit to get out of this detainment facility and away from the reach of the CIA.

  And back together with Cassandra.

  Calculating th
e time, Terry knew that it was almost 8:30 p.m. in Wisconsin.

  Okay.

  He wheeled to the bathroom to make a call to his partner to verify that all was in place for tomorrow.

  39

  After signing out and leaving my irate nurse behind, I met Jake in the lobby of the hospital.

  Reluctantly, but out of necessity, I used a pair of crutches to get to the car, then as we headed into the blizzard he filled me in: state patrol had found the Peterbilt truck that I’d seen crossing the bridge above the Chippewa River. It was parked at a restaurant about twenty miles west of Woodborough, but there were no other cars or snowmobiles missing at the restaurant and no one matching Alexei’s description had been seen entering the premises.

  “It’s like he just disappeared,” Jake said.

  “No. He’s smart. He abducted someone else in the parking lot and left with ’em in their vehicle so there wouldn’t be any immediate suspicion.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because it’s what I would’ve done.”

  Jake was quiet.

  “Any sign of the driver of the semi?”

  “No. Still unaccounted for.”

  It was possible that the suspect had left the driver alive, perhaps to use as leverage like he’d done with Ellory, but even though I tried to hold out hope, I couldn’t help but think of the truck driver only in the past tense.

  Anger.

  This guy Chekov was mine.

  Jake went on, “No sign of Ellory, but if he drowned in that river like you said, that’s no surprise.”

  “What do you mean if he drowned?”

  “I was just noting that they haven’t found his body yet.”

  “He went under, Jake. He didn’t come up.”

  A moment. “Okay.” Then, “The divers never made it down from Ashland, and with this storm it doesn’t look like they will.”

  No surprise there.

  “Where’s Natasha?”

  “With Linnaman at the hospital. Last I heard, she was assisting him with the autopsies of Ardis and Lizzie Pickron.”

  The snowfall illuminated by our headlights wasn’t letting up, and the road we were on hadn’t been plowed recently. Drifts, some nearly three feet high, were forming, jutting out perpendicular to the shoulders. I’d let Jake drive, and he was doing his best to avoid the drifts, but it didn’t seem like he was used to driving in this kind of weather.

  The going was slow.

  “I also talked with Torres,” he said. “They discovered Reiser’s body near the trailer park. And get this: his lungs are gone.”

  Basque.

  “He must have found out how close we were to catching Reiser and decided he was a liability,” Jake speculated.

  Analyze and investigate; don’t assume.

  “Time of death?”

  “They’re not sure yet. Still working on that. I haven’t heard from the ERT, but I’m expecting we’ll find souvenirs hidden somewhere in the trailer. Probably press clippings too.”

  Most serial killers keep tokens or emblems of their crimes—body parts of the victims, fingernails, hair, or jewelry, clothing, or accessories, so Jake’s words didn’t surprise me. I thought again of the profile he had drawn up on Reiser. “You’re still thinking he followed coverage of his crimes? Documented them?”

  “Yeah, if I’m calling this right, I’d say our guy is a scrapbooker for sure.”

  I told Jake about Alexei’s claim that he wasn’t responsible for killing the Pickron family. “It seemed important to him that I not associate him with the murder of Ardis and Lizzie.”

  “Typical assassin mentality,” he said, profiling on the spot. “They have their own unique, individualized set of moral values and convictions. Often they see violence that isn’t mission-oriented as immoral, but violence committed in the context of their professional life as simply necessary. Mental compartmentalization.”

  Jake was right.

  But he was also wrong. It’s not just assassins who do that, we all do. Freud once said that rationalization makes the world go round, and whatever else he got wrong, he nailed that one.

  Everyone rationalizes their own immorality—people have affairs and yet look their spouses in the eye, they cheat on their taxes and then get mad at corruption on Wall Street, they lie outright to their bosses to get ahead and still manage to feel good about themselves, to have high self-esteem.

  Mental compartmentalization.

  Rationalization.

  Without it we’d have to live in the daily recognition of who we really are, what we’re really capable of. And that’s something most people avoid at all costs.

  As Lien-hua had told me once, “We run from the past and it chases us; we dive into urgency, but nothing deep is ultimately healed.”

  Despite my reticence to trust Jake’s profiles and observations, I had to admit that he was iterating some of the same thoughts I’d had since my confrontation with Alexei at the river. If we were right about the assassin’s state of mind, I wondered if there might be a way to use his skewed moral grounding against him. To trap him. To bring him in.

  The conversation faded into silence, and about ten minutes later we arrived at the motel. I tried to stand on my own, but my ankle screamed at me and I had to lean against the car. I hid the gesture from Jake as much as I could.

  He went on ahead, and after crutching my way inside, I used my room phone to call my own cell number, to find out where Sean was.

  Tessa picked up. “Hey.”

  At first I thought maybe I’d inadvertently dialed the wrong number. “Tessa?”

  She got right to the point: “You fell in a river? Seriously?”

  “Why do you have my phone, Tessa? Where are you?”

  “I’m with Sean. I decided to drive over and see you. He picked me up at—”

  “You what!”

  “Decided to come see you. And then I hear you, like—”

  “Tessa, I was clear that I didn’t want you driving today!”

  “I thought you wanted to show me around. Spend time with me.”

  “I do, but that’s not the point. You were supposed to stay there.”

  “Noted,” she said. “So what happened at the river?”

  “Tessa—”

  “Tell me about the river, Dad.”

  Oh, she said that last word on purpose. Very sly.

  Very.

  Sly.

  And despite myself, as I contemplated a reply, I found that her tactic just might be working.

  Even though I was frustrated that she hadn’t listened to me, I was also thankful she was safe, and right now, more quickly than I ever would have guessed, that relief was overtaking my irritation. “It’s a long story.” I laid the crutches against the wall and propped my leg up on the bed. “We’ll talk about it later. Where are you two?”

  “You almost drowned. You could have died.”

  Margaret did say you weren’t breathing . . .

  “Well, I’m up and at it again.”

  “You’re always doing this to me,” Tessa said softly.

  “Always doing what to you?”

  “Almost dying.”

  “How am I doing that to you?”

  “I’m your daughter. You’re the one . . .” She hesitated until the silence became uncomfortable. “It’s just, you can’t go and get killed—or almost killed, or whatever. Not when you have someone that you have to, well, you know.”

  Take care of, yes, I know.

  “I’ll be careful.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”

  “I mean it this time.”

  “That’s what you said last time. When you got shot.”

  “That time was different.”

  “And the time before that, when—”

  “Listen, are you two almost here?”

  Faintly, I heard her speak off the phone to Sean before returning to the line. “Sean says we’re like ten minutes from his house, about twenty-five from the
hospital. Maybe a little more.”

  “Actually, I left the hospital. I’m at the motel.” I’d reserved a room for Tessa earlier this morning, and in the rush of the day’s events I’d forgotten about it.

  But—

  “Hang on, that’ll take you even longer. Let me talk to him a sec.”

  A short pause as she handed Sean the phone. “You doing all right?” he asked.

  “I’m good. Listen, just take Tessa to your place for the night. Don’t chance the roads, there’s no reason to. We’ll connect in the morning.”

  “I was thinking the same thing.”

  “Great. And just hang on to those papers that I gave you at the sawmill. I’ll get them tomorrow.” I paused. “Oh, and did you hear about your sled?”

  “I was there with the paramedics when they picked you up at the river. I saw what was left of it.”

  “Yeah. Sorry about that. I didn’t really expect that tree to jump out at me like that.”

  “Didn’t really shock me. You can be impulsive sometimes.”

  He had me there. “I’ll get you a new one.” A lightness that hadn’t been present between us for years had entered the conversation, and it felt good. “Maybe I can even get the Bureau to chip in since I was chasing a suspect in a federal investigation when I commandeered it.”

  “Finally some tax dollars put to good use.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’m just glad you’re all right. Amber’s snowmobile is in the shed. I can use that if I need to get around.” His words held forgiveness, and it made me wish my apology had been a little more forthright and comprehensive.

  We said our good-byes, hung up, and then I headed to the front desk to borrow a couple five-gallon buckets.

  Time to take care of that ankle.

  40

  Simon Weatherford, the manager of the Schoenberg Inn, hadn’t given Cassandra Lillo’s associate Ted Rusk any trouble on Wednesday when Ted offered him $50,000 of Valkyrie’s money for exclusive use of the two basement sections of the hotel for the week. Weatherford vowed that they wouldn’t be interrupted for anything, and so far he’d held unswervingly to his promise.