The Permit

by William B. Scott

  Manor thanked the officer, tapped a red End bar, scrolled another list and launched a second call. Waiting, he reflected on the commitment Krepps had made on behalf of the National Security Agency.

  Within minutes, NSA's fabled Echelon system would be vacuuming up and combing through every cell phone call made in Las Vegas over the last few hours, assigning priority to those emanating from Summerlin. Powerful parallel-processing supercomputers would scan conversations, searching for key words and locking onto transmissions that might have something to do with the Erik Steele case. In seconds, high-probability calls would be isolated, assembled as searchable files and fired via SIPRNET, a classified, ultra-secure version of the Internet, to Manor and the Checkmate ops center in Washington, DC.

  "DHS Liaison. Preston speaking." Considerable background noise garbled the voice.

  "Nat! Bishop here. Confirm secure, please."

  Nat Preston, a Department of Homeland Security domestic operations agent stationed in Las Vegas, was driving a red 2010 Corvette, top down, hitting 70 mph on the Summerlin Parkway.

  "Yep, secure. Gotta speak up. Lotta wind noise. Who'd you say this was?"

  "Bishop! Hell, Gray Manor!" he shouted. "I need you to do something ASAP, Nat. You copy?"

  Preston decelerated to a legal 55 miles per hour, as the 'Vette approached the U.S. 95 merge.

  "Yeah, I hear you now. Figured you'd be calling. Heard the news about Comet on local TV. Can't believe it… ." Nat hesitated a beat. "I'm inbound to the Fusion Center now. Are we going hot?"

  "Yes. As soon as humanly possible, Nat, I want Stux-Kilo activated. We're already behind the curve, so I can't emphasize this enough: We have to get eyes inside Metro. Now!" Manor said.

  "Way ahead of you, sir. Soon as I heard about Comet, I sent a preprogrammed, coded text message to a Bone soft-switch in the Center. That initiated… "

  "Okay, okay, Nat," Manor interrupted. The DHS liaison was also a first-class techie, but Checkmate's director didn't have time to entertain a Nat Preston discourse on the intricacies of digi-bytes and clever algorithms.

  "Based on what I heard from their shill on TV, Metro's already into spin-mode overdrive. I want to know who's saying what inside that snake's den." He quickly ticked off items Nat should monitor.

  "Got it," Preston said, angling for his exit. "I'll be in the center in five minutes. Anybody in particular you want bird-dogged, sir?"

  "Stand by."

  Manor tapped his iPad, pulling up a wiring diagram, an intricate network of names and connections among law enforcement leaders, politicians and corporate executives.

  "If you see Sheriff Uriah in the Center, take note of who he contacts. It is Saturday, but I'll put a twenty on him showing up. This officer-involved shooting of Comet — Metro's second within three weeks — will ding his poll numbers, and he's already losing ground to that lieutenant. The L-T's gaining fast on Uriah, and the incumbent's gotta be worried. Uriah will be all over Comet's killing, just to cover his political butt."

  "You got that, sir," Nat agreed. He palm-spun the steering wheel, swinging the 'Vette into a reserved parking lane marked "DHS." A mere GS-13 federal employee, Preston relished his Fusion Center parking perk. It was a subtle, yet concrete, indication of how drastically the world had changed, since that horrible day in September 2001. These days, DHS folks were on the front line of the war on terror, and local cops had become deferential, actually looking to feds like Preston for leadership.

  However, Nat Preston was hardly a Metro ally. His business card read "DHS Liaison," but he secretly worked for Gray Manor. Preston was Checkmate's mole inside the interagency Joint Counterterrorism Task Force or J-CTF, in government acronym-speak.

  "I'm at the center now, sir. Back to ya, as soon as I get a blip," Preston said. "Give me ten, then log into the Stux server. I'll verify Kilo is scarfing up Metro e-traffic, reports, video clips, whatever. If Kilo's doing its thing correctly, your guys'll be able to monitor every computer in this place."

  He suppressed an urge to explain how Stux-Kilo would give Checkmate's information-warfare experts a ringside seat inside Metro, feeding multiplexed signals off site via power lines at mind-blowing speeds. Kilo was a modified version of the Stuxnet "worm" that U.S. and Israeli cyberwarriors had unleashed inside Iran's nuclear facilities, causing thousands of the rogue nation's uranium centrifuges to spin out of control, literally tearing themselves apart.

  Kilo, however, was tailored for covert information extraction and communication, not equipment destruction. Ironically, its targets were inside the U.S.—corporate giants suspected of funneling money to al-Qaeda sleeper cells, nefarious, compromised police departments, powerful unions and corrupt politicians at all levels of government.

  Las Vegas was unique in that Stux-Kilo was being deployed against every one of those entities. With today's activation of Kilo inside Metro, the department's myriad secrets were now being scarfed up and fed to Checkmate's voracious terabyte-per-second computers. And other than Nat Preston and a few Checkmate insiders, not a soul in Sin City knew it.

  * *

  LAS VEGAS, NEVADA/SOUTHERN NEVADA COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER ("FUSION CENTER")

  "Holy shit, Mikey," Sheriff Alex Uriah breathed. "We're toast."

  The four-star officer, Clark County, Nevada's, most powerful elected official, hovered over Captain Michael Greel's shoulder. Seated at a twenty-inch computer display, Greel let the comment slide without response. He and Uriah were watching video recorded by the Ho's-Summerlin security-surveillance system only hours earlier.

  "Not necessarily, chief," Greel said, choosing his words carefully. "We have options."

  He waited, letting the sheriff fill in the blanks.

  Uriah shook his head. "No way. You saw it, Mikey! The suspect… What's his name… ?"

  "Steele. Erik Steele, sir."

  After arriving at Metro's spanking-new Fusion Center, Greel had gone through the victim's thick wallet, carefully wiping blood from the expensive, high-grade leather, credit cards and a Metro-issued Concealed Firearms Permit. The white, laminated permit card had Steele's name and photo embossed on its face. A list of handguns Steele was authorized to carry covered two inches on the back side.

  "Yeah," Uriah said. "Steele never reached for his weapon! Dip-shit Krupa couldn't tell a damned cell phone from a .45 semi-auto? He killed that guy in cold blood, Mikey! He murdered Steele! And fifty, sixty people watched him do it! Then two rookies opened up. Sympathetic fire, yeah, but… Christamighty! This is bad. Real bad."

  Uriah ran a hand back and forth over a bald skull. He paced behind Greel, muttering obscenities and agonizing about potential "next steps."

  Greel pivoted a desk chair, leaned back and clasped both hands behind his neck, stretching. If he played this right, life could get better. Much better. Like the president of the United States, Greel lived by a simple credo: Never let a serious crisis go to waste. Crises were opportunities. You just had to be smart enough to capitalize on them.

  "Sir, if I were in charge of the investigation, this video would simply cease to exist. In Mikey Greel's world, the Ho's video recording system failed last Thursday. It was inop today."

  Uriah snorted and shot Greel a sneer. "Oh, really? I thought CIRT and you were running it. Who is?"

  "Homicide. Sergeant Jon Schroeder. I had words with him at Ho's, and he… . Let's just say he wasn't very appreciative — or professional. Basically, he ran me off. Something along the lines of: 'CIRT's not coming within a thousand miles of this case. Your assistance is not needed, or wanted… sir!' Kinda hurt my feelings."

  Greel smiled, a humorless baring of off-white teeth. Uriah was reminded of a fanged Mojave Green rattlesnake. Mikey's troops called him "Vader," Uriah knew. And for good reason. Greel was dangerous.

  The sheriff dropped into a chair and faced Greel.

  "Spit it out. What's rattling around in that devious brain, captain?"

  He trusted Greel about as far as he could pitch an eighteen-whe
eler, but the guy was smart—and completely devoid of morals. He'd proven his worth time and again, deftly handling sticky situations for Metro, political figures caught with their pants down, and one particular big-bucks casino owner. Uriah despised Greel, but subscribed to the Mafia tenet: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. In the interest of self-preservation, Uriah kept Greel within easy reach.

  The CIRT captain outlined a bare-bones plan. Audacious and gutsy, for sure, and Uriah doubted that it could survive a federal probe — although the Clark County sheriff had the means to deflect any serious FBI interest. He questioned a few points, but Greel brushed them off.

  "Only one problem, chief," Greel concluded, fingers interlaced over a thick paunch.

  Uriah raised a bushy eyebrow in question.

  "Schroeder called in a Metro network systems guy to check the Ho's video recording system. If it fires up—and I expect it will—Schroeder will try to impound the DVD recorder. And… well… Schroeder's retiring in December. He's committed to, quote, 'Do the right thing,' unquote."

  Uriah nodded slowly, staring at Vader.

  You skunk, he thought. Got me in a box and you know it. Aloud, the sheriff asked, "What's your price, Mikey?"

  Greel stared a long minute, black eyes narrowed to slits, then slowly grinned. "If Schroeder reported to me… No problem, right?"

  "You want to run Homicide? That's a lieutenant's position! You willing to take a demotion?"

  Greel shrugged, snake eyes probing Uriah's.

  "Maybe it's time to upgrade Homicide to a captain's slot."

  A heavy silence developed.

  Uriah considered the implications, mentally sorting personnel options, then nodded.

  "Sure. We can do that. Homicide's overwhelmed and understaffed. I can justify adding a couple more detectives, and that warrants elevating the Homicide Bureau to a captain's slot.

  "With seventeen officer-involved shootings this year — so far," Uriah added, grimacing, "I'm taking one hell of a lot of heat from the commissioners to find out what's going on. And fix it. If I appoint you Homicide Bureau Chief, I expect you to square away this Erik Steele mess. And fast. Comprendez?"

  Greel nodded.

  "Here's the deal," the sheriff continued, wagging a finger at Greel. "I'll call Schroeder and tell him he reports to you, effective immediately. Next Monday, you give me a name. Whoever you think I should name as acting chief of the West Substation. Then I'll announce your appointment to head up Homicide."

  The sheriff pulled a deep, ragged breath. "Mikey, you make sure that Ho's surveillance video vanishes. Forever! If some wiseass lawyer ever gets ahold of it, the county'll be on the hook for tens of millions in wrongful death and civil rights abuse damages.

  "And you, my friend, could go to prison for planting Steele's forty-five at the crime scene. It's all right there, in living color. I assume you fully appreciate the gravity of this, captain?"

  Again, Greel nodded and lifted a confident thumbs-up.

  Uriah stood to leave, but hesitated. He gripped the top of Greel's shoulder and said, "Mikey, do what it takes to bury this Steele mess. We can't tolerate more bad publicity. We don't know who the hell Erik Steele was, but, if he was shopping at Ho's, he's probably a blue-collar type. I seriously doubt if Steele will turn out to be a community mover and shaker. If we handle this right, a week from now, nobody will give a rat's ass about Erik Steele.

  "And I want that damned Krupa off the force," Uriah added vehemently. "That cone head's a loose cannon! Two fatal shootings! And the idiot's only been on the force five years? How the hell did he get through the academy?"

  Greel nodded in agreement. "I'll take care of it, chief. You know, Krupa shoulda been busted out of the academy. His training officer tried to dump him. But you remember how hard up we were for officers in the mid-two-thousands! Somebody upstairs let him slide through, so we could put boots on the street. Now we're paying for that serious lapse in judgment."

  "We're paying for it?" Uriah exclaimed, jabbing a thumb at his own chest in mock surprise. "Hell-oooo, Mikey! Erik Steele paid for our failure of personnel training and oversight with his life, for chrissake!

  "I want this dog's-butt Krupa off my force! He's history! Make it happen, Mikey!"

  Uriah stormed out, slamming the door.

  Still seated, the captain saluted, smiling. Yazah, boss! He muttered, "Change of program, chief. I have other plans for numb-nuts Krupa."

  Greel turned back to the computer, ejected an unmarked DVD and slipped it into a coated-paper sleeve. Standing, he slid the disk into a pocket of his tan uniform slacks, then turned to a jumble of items on the desktop.

  He re-read handwritten entries on seven blue, credit-card-sized cards he'd pulled from Steele's wallet. All were labeled GUN REGISTRATION CARD. LAS VEGAS METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT, LAS VEGAS, NEVADA. Six were laminated. One edge of the seventh was stained with blood. Erik Steele's blood. The captain double-checked the date on that card: 6/12/2010.

  He flipped the blue card over and memorized each entry:

  Manufactured by: Ruger

  Caliber: .380

  Color: Bi-Tone

  Model: LCP

  Barrel length: 2.75"

  Signature of Owner: Erik Steele's bold scrawl in black ink.

  Comparing that blue card's data with a list of handguns on the dead suspect's white card, his Concealed Firearms Permit, a smile eased across Greel's features.

  Bingo!

  He had to get his hands on that Ruger LCP. And, if he had Steele figured out, Mikey Greel had a pretty good idea where to find it.

  He pulled a Metro-issued cell phone from a belt holster.

  Erik Steele, you're about to become a deceased felon.

  CHAPTER 6

  INVASION

  "For de little stealin'

  dey gits you in jail soon or late."

  Eugene O'Neill

  The Emperor Jones

  DALLAS/FORT WORTH INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

  Kyler Steele sagged into a boarding gate seat, cell phone clamped to his ear.

  "How?" he whispered, shock making it hard to breathe. He felt as if he'd taken a 250-pound fullback to the midsection.

  "I'm afraid I don't have much," an apologetic social worker said. "Evidently, your brother was in a Ho's store in Summerlin, waving three guns around, acting erratically. An employee called nine-one-one, and the responding police officers had to shoot. I don't know why. I'm so, so sorry, Mr. Steele."

  Kyler closed his eyes, shocked and numb. His lips moved, but no sound emerged. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Understand. Are you sure… ? There's no… ?"

  Logically, his brain knew there was no mistake. Why would a social worker track him down, if Erik wasn't really the victim? Emotionally, he was incapable of grasping the horrible truth behind her words.

  His only brother, his big brother, his always-smiling, laughing, redheaded, gym-rat hero, had been shot to death. Erik was dead!

  Kyler mumbled a few questions, but learned nothing more. He stammered a thank-you, broke the connection and stared through floor-to-ceiling glass, oblivious of passengers swirling past and airliners nosing into nearby gates.

  What the hell did Erik do? Why would cops shoot him, for God's sake? Nothing made sense. Erik was supersharp in tight situations. The ultimate coolheaded Army tank platoon leader. A guy who thrived on battlefield tension and was absolutely fearless in the face of danger. There's no way. No way!

  Kyler's cell phone sounded off again. Another 702 area code. He didn't recognize the number. Reluctantly, he answered and croaked a throat-constricted greeting.

  "Kyler Steele?" an unfamiliar voice asked.

  "Yes. Who's this?"

  "Hey, Kyler. This is Roberto Vaca with the Public Administrator's office in Clark County, Nevada. I'm very sorry about your brother, sir. Really am. I apologize for calling at such a bad time, but I… uhh… my job's to secure valuables and firearms at a homicide victim's home to… uhh… .
Make sure nothing's stolen, ya see? So, I… uhh… I need your permission to enter your brother's condo."

  "Look, I'm in Dallas. I’ll try to get a flight back home, then drive up to Vegas as soon as I can."

  "Oh, I understand," Vaca countered. "I still gotta get in and secure… "

  "Hey! You do not need to get into Erik's condo! We've got it covered," Kyler said, irritated. "Erik's girlfriend lives there, and she'll make sure everything's safe. Don't worry about it, okay?"

  "Sure, but I… uhh… I have to get in there and make sure valuables and… uhh… any weapons aren't stolen. That happens… "

  "Look, I've gotta catch a flight. You do not have permission to go into that condo! Got it?" Steele interrupted.

  He punched the END icon, white-hot angry. Not five minutes ago, he'd learned that Erik had been gunned down! Shot to death! Now a jerk from a Las Vegas office he'd never heard of was trying to get into Erik's condo?

  What's the damned rush, idiot?

  Kyler ran a hand through short-cropped, dark-brown hair, struggling to organize thought-flashes.

  Oh God, this can't be happening! The tall, athletic thirty-six-year-old fought tears.

  Damn it! Erik, what the hell… ? God, this is going to kill Mom.

  Exactly one week ago, the family had buried her father, Kyler's retired-Army grandfather, with full military honors. Now Kyler would have to inform his mother that her oldest son had been killed. Shot to death!

  Grab a flight back to California. He obviously wouldn't be attending the company's national sales meeting in New Orleans.

  Call my boss. No, call Dad first.

  Elbows on knees, Kyler tried to control the random lightning bursts of gotta-dos that exploded in a dark, stupefying fog swirling through his head. He couldn't draw a deep breath. His chest hurt. Throat so tight, battling the threat of tears, that speaking was an arduous task.

  Flight. Get a flight back to Orange County. Then make the calls.

  He stood, shouldered a briefcase, and approached an American Airlines ticket agent. He explained what he needed, and why. Eyes wide, a hand flew to her mouth in shock. She expressed profound condolences, then went to work, fingers racing over a keyboard.