by John Etzil
I was working my way through the rest.
Flight 2262 had ignited a firestorm in me, and the only way that I could quench it was to stay involved in HFS. So I kept my hand in the game by working as an outside contractor for them. My area of expertise was IT—specifically, archiving, securing, and retrieving humongous amounts of data—and my top-secret security clearance allowed me to eavesdrop on anyone who had a pulse. If anyone could locate Catherine, it was me.
“Sure, I’ll get started tomorrow,” I said. “You have a cell number for her? Last known address and list of friends? Her birthdate and Social Security number would help too.”
“Yeah, I’ll email all that over to you,” She looked at me and smiled. “Thanks so much, Jack. You don’t know how much this means to me.” She reached across the bar and hugged me. Her long black hair smelled like heaven, and I squeezed her tight and nibbled on her neck.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught envious looks from every male sitting at the bar. Especially Bobby. I made eye contact with him and gave him a thumbs-up and a big smile.
Further down the bar, Frances was giving me imaginary high fives, complete with the ashes from her Lucky Strike falling into her hair. I smiled at her, all the while praying that she wouldn’t set herself on fire. I turned my attention back to Debbie.
“So does that mean that you’ll come home with me tonight instead of Bobbie?”
She broke our hug and chuckled. “Not sure yet. Let’s see how the night plays out.” She smiled and stuck her tongue out at me.
I normally loved her sense of humor, but enough was enough. I decided to play hardball. I stood up and nodded toward Bobby. “You know, guys who drink a lot have a—ahem, rigidity problem.” I stood up and stuck my chest out, posing like a modern-day Tarzan. “Certainly not the case with me.”
“Oh, don’t worry about Bobby,” she shot back with a wink. “Viagra takes care of that.”
She walked over and got Bobby a fresh beer mug from the cooler, bending over right in front of him. He wiped the drool from his open mouth. He looked at me after she straightened up, and gave me a thumbs-up and a smile.
4
Despite my honey’s propensity for torturing me with her wannabe suitors at the Red Barn, she did come home with me, and it was everything I’d fantasized about. Alas, morning eventually came, and she departed after breakfast, leaving me to spool up my TOR browser and log in to Home Front Security to research her sister’s whereabouts.
My top-secret vendor credentials give me unrestricted access to all of HFS’s data. If the average American knew how extensive the government’s eavesdropping technology was, they’d shit their pants. HFS had unrestricted access to and control of every single electronic device known to man.
All manufacturers that wanted to sell their electronic products in the land of the free had to install a government-designed chip, through which HFS could admin the entire device. So if your device was, say, a TV, we could watch and record you. Same with a computer or a smartphone. Want to know how I was so sure about drunken Bobby’s, ahem, rigidity problem? Never mind…
For devices with built-in motion detectors, like your common wall switch or outdoor lighting fixtures, our government techies took it a few dozen steps further and designed a sensor that had IR facial recognition. Show me a photo of a person’s face, and I’d get you their latest location, along with their history at that location.
Those pesky red light cameras that snap a photo of you when you don’t come to a full stop before making that right turn on red? All front seat occupants of every car got a facial IR scan.
If that wasn’t enough to create paranoia, every electronic device in your life has audio recording capability. Want to know the real reason why the United States government wanted a smoke detector in every room? Yeah, exactly. And with our advanced voice recognition software, we only needed a voice sample of three seconds to positively identify a person with 99.9 percent accuracy.
Even if you didn’t bother to set up your Wi-Fi–connected device when it was installed, we did you a solid and took care of it for you. You’re welcome.
Don’t have internet service? No problem. We created free Wi-Fi, under the pretense of “free internet for everyone,” for just that reason. You, and every electronic device in your world, are online.
With all that tech on my side, I figured I’d locate Catherine right way. I even had a mental to-do list of things to take care of around the house after I gathered enough info on her to put together a kidnapping/rescue plan with the added bonus of killing a few bad guys, which, by the way, is my reason for living. The horrific events of Flight 2262 had turned me into a stone-cold vigilante, and I had a thirst for revenge that could only be quenched by bad guys dying, preferably in groups of ten.
After a few hours of ham-fingered inputs in the search box in the HFS database, I came up with enough information on Catherine to call it a day. It was a bittersweet accomplishment. Each time I clicked open a new window, I was hit with more and more depressing information about her. Poor kid was in deep. Drugs, stripping, gang affiliation, and prostitution. Damn.
I couldn’t give my findings to Debbie over the phone. I needed to break it to her in person. I printed out a security camera photo for Debbie to positively identify the gaunt and disshelved person as Catherine, and shoved it in my pocket.
I let my Doberman pinscher Saber out to frolic in the backyard for a while. The rabbits that London, my hero German shepherd, used to chase around the yard were still living under the shed, but Saber didn’t have the same herding instinct that London had possessed. Other than staring them down, which he did to everything that had eyes, he left them alone.
I opened the back door and he was sitting statuesque, his back to the house as he surveyed his domain, before turning and coming inside. I filled his water bowl and hopped into my truck while he watched me from the living room window.
I drove slow and took the long way to the Red Barn, taking the extra time to go over in my mind the conversation that I didn’t look forward to having with Debbie. I arrived right before they opened and caught Debbie just as she’d finished setting up. She greeted me with her usual good humor. “I’m sorry, sir, we’re closed. Come back later.”
I hugged her and took her by the hand into the parking lot.
“Okay,” she exhaled. “This can’t be good. You’re either breaking up with me, or you have some really bad news about Catherine. So, is this the luckiest day of Bobby’s life, or not?”
“Not.” I handed her the photo. Her expression told me that I’d found the right person, and that she was as equally disturbed at seeing it as I was.
I put my arm around her shoulder. “I’m sorry, babe, she’s not doing well. She’s a stripper, a heroin addict, and affiliated with a gang.” I left out the prostitution part.
“Gangs? Heroin?” She looked up at me. “Are you shitting me?”
“No, I wish I was. Right now she’s keeping company with a low-level drug dealer in Newburgh, named Roberto. It took me awhile to find her since they’re kind of in the stone age as far as electronics go. Did you know that only six point four percent of Newburgh residents have microwaves? And that there are zero thermostats that contain Wi-Fi capabilities in the entire city.”
“Uhhm, Patrick?” She rolled her eyes at me and shook her head.
Now I’d done it. Whenever she referred to me as that dumb-as-a-rock SpongeBob character, I knew I’d messed up big-time.
“I’m being nice to you because you’re helping me out here, but who gives a shit how many microwaves there are in Newburgh?”
“Well, I was just mentioning it because household electronic devices are how HFS gathers its intel, and a lack of said devices makes it harder to—”
“Patrick!” She pushed me away and stop-signed an open palm inches from my nose. “Shut up. Nobody freakin’ cares!”
“Right. Well. Anyhow, at least we can go get her now.”
“You have
a plan?”
I stuck my chest out. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
“Good. After tonight, I’m off for two days. Can we get her tomorrow?”
“Yes. I’ll spend the rest of the day planning the mission.” I gave her a hug. “Really sorry about this, babe. But we’ll get her. I promise.”
“I know we will.” She wiped a tear from her face. “I know we will. See you tonight.” She turned and went inside the Red Barn.
I climbed into my truck and headed back to Eminence. I had a lot of packing to do, and despite my absolute confidence in my killing skill, this type of mission was a little outside my area of expertise. Kill everyone on site? Sure, no problem. Leave the scene with a live person? Never done that in my life.
5
I spent the rest of the day planning. I learned a lot about Newburgh and the drug trade as well as gangs that had taken over the city. The gang that Catherine was hanging with, the Silent But Deadly Aces, was especially violent. SBDA was headquartered in Camden, New Jersey, and had a satellite branch that dominated the Newburgh drug trade. The gang’s MO was simple: befriend strippers, ply them with cheap heroin, and turn them into prostitutes who’d work for their fix.
After a short stint as a prostitute, Catherine had managed to work herself into the upper echelon of the group. She didn’t have to walk the streets anymore, but she still had to service gang members as a favor to the boss. She was basically a gang slave, and in return she was protected, well fed, and supplied with heroin, keeping her addicted for as long as she looked hot and did what was asked of her. Previous girlfriends who had failed at either of those two tasks had gone missing—either traded away to another gang like an old baseball card, or dumped in the Hudson River.
My kill list from HFS research had grown to over a hundred, but I had no SBDA members on it. Until now. I promoted Roberto to numero uno and grinned as I rubbed my palms together in excitement. As many times as I killed a bad guy, the thrill of an upcoming mission of evildoer destruction never got old.
Through HFS research I found a shady real estate broker in Newburgh, Jimmy the Guinea—swear to God that was his name—who specialized in rental units. My request was a little unique, and I could tell from his initial “you want a what?” that he was taken aback.
I requested a unit that was in an abandoned building so I didn’t have to worry about any interaction with the neighbors. We should be mission complete in a day or two, but I had to plan for a longer stay just in case my intel was off. Or if something went wrong. I’d been on enough of these types of missions to realize that things usually didn’t go as planned. And as a six-foot-six lily-white person of zero color in the mostly minority demographic of Newburgh, I was going to stand out like a fat-fingered proctologist who gave lectures on how to ease a patient’s anxiety about their upcoming prostate exam.
Using a fictitious identity and a burner phone, I bitcoined Jimmy the Guinea the hefty sum of two thousand dollars for a one-month rental on Landers Street, the heart of Newburgh’s gangland territory. He commented about how I must really love the area to be willing to pay so much. I told him that my offer included a little extra for him to keep a secret, and that I expected him to comply. He joked that for that much coin, I could have his wife for the duration of my stay as well.
Although I appreciated his generosity, I told him to shut the fuck up. It didn’t help that in my HFS research, I’d stumbled across a photo of his wife stepping out of the shower, and let’s just say that she left a lot to be desired in the body-grooming category. Hairy armpits and upper lips aren’t my thing.
I went out to my garage, removed the license plate from my truck, and put on a burner plate that I’d bought online from a company in China. I’d had it shipped to one of my secret PO boxes. Burner plates were a lot more complex than burner phones. I had to hack into the New York Department of Motor Vehicles website and search for the same model, year, and color Toyota that I had. Once I found that, I had to make sure that there were no outstanding warrants or unpaid tickets on the plates. This way, if a law enforcement officer called in my plates, they’d come back clean. If he or she happened to pull me over, then they’d either buy my story that my friend had lent me his truck, or I’d be forced to go down a path I really didn’t want to go, but would if needed.
Now that the hospitality and travel logistics were taken care of, I focused on weaponry. I knew that my trusty Glock 17 with Osprey silencer would, as always, be my main pistol. I loaded up my go bag with some duct tape, cable ties, a spool of paracord, night vision binoculars, a police scanner, sodium pentothal, ecstasy tabs, a pair of heavy-duty wire cutters, and three spare Glock 17s, which you can never have too many of. I wasn’t a fan of those clowns who owned ten different handguns in their quest to impress others. In their quest to cover up their small junk insecurities, they could spout out gun manufacturer acronyms like they were reciting their ABCs in grammar school. “Yeah, I’ve got an H&K, S&W, Sig Sau, yada yada yada…” It was all bullshit. I did have ten handguns, but they were all Glock 17s. And all of them had at least one notch in them.
I threw in a dozen or so extra ammo magazines, like most people toss spare change into a jar, and topped it all off with my Kindle.
I popped open my drone case and made sure that both batteries were fully charged, then closed it back up. That was another benefit of being an HFS vendor. They had the neatest James Bond–type gizmos that I could “test.” And this drone—I’d named her Amelia—topped the list. She was a quadcopter the size of an iPad, and stealthy enough that she couldn’t be heard if she was flying over two hundred feet high, so it was perfect for surveillance.
The best part about Amelia was the mapping software that came with her. Using my iPhone, I could program her to take off, fly to any height and in any direction as fast or slow as I wanted, and collect 4K video as well as gigantic 48MP still images. She had the equivalent of a 400mm telephoto lens on her stealthy frame, allowing me to zoom in and read the circulation date of a dime from two hundred feet.
Once the route was planned out, I pressed the GO button, and Amelia took care of the rest. Priceless.
I debated taking my newly acquired Remington 700 bolt action .308 rifle with suppressor, night vision scope, and laser. I’d picked one up after the Sparky’s Tavern Massacre, and although I had no plans of sniping anyone, I thought it would be a great tool for Debbie to back me up with, so I decided to take it with us.
My second go bag had a couple of burner phones in a lead-shielded bag to make them untraceable, along with a healthy amount of bottled water, protein bars, and other snacks. Since eating Newburgh food wasn’t an option, that would have to tide us over until mission completion. I threw in one change of clothes just in case I got smeared with Roberto’s DNA and had to burn the ones I had on. A worthy sacrifice to kill that little bastard.
Little did I know that for the first time in my post Flight 2262 life, I’d fail on a mission.
6
FBI Agent Leo Kennedy knocked on his supervisor’s open door and waited for him to look up from his paperwork before entering his office.
“Can I have a moment with you, sir?”
“Sure, Leo, what’s up?”
“It’s the Agent Skillman case, and that Sheriff Lamburt fellow.”
Paul Cefalo, Special Agent in charge of the Newburgh office, put his pen down and gave Leo his undivided attention. “Go on.”
“I still can’t shake that feeling, sir. Something’s just not right with that guy.”
“You sure it’s not because he pointed a gun at you and nearly made you piss your pants?”
“No, that’s not it. I mean, that’s messed up and all, but there’s more. When we interviewed the patrons of the Red Barn to find out if anyone had seen Agent Skillman before he disappeared, that one old lady’s comments really stuck in my mind.”
“You mean the old lady that grabbed your ass and told you to go fuck yourself?”
“Yes, but before t
hat she talked about Sheriff Lamburt taking care of their own. Kind of like in a threatening manner.”
“I read that in your report, Leo. Now, is there anything else?”
“I’d like permission to look into this guy’s background a little deeper. Maybe even go up to Summit and snoop around a little. I still think there might be something there.”
Paul frowned, stood up, and walked over and closed his door. He gestured to a chair. “Sit down, Leo.”
He sat back down at his desk. “I don’t know if you know this or not, but Sheriff Lamburt is a Flight 2262 survivor. Unfortunately, his wife wasn’t so lucky. He also had a stellar career with the CIA before moving over to the NSA, where he worked on top-secret assignments. I really don’t think that there’s anything there, but if you want to take a cursory look, then go ahead. Just make it quick. We’ve got a backlog of cases, and with Congress just cutting our budget, this office is short a man, so I can’t afford to have you spending too much time on a wild goose chase.”
“Understood, sir.” Agent Kennedy stood up. “Anything else?”
“Yes. Lamburt’s father is a big political donor. Both parties. He has many friends in high places. Make sure you have something rock-solid on him before you ruffle any feathers. Understood?”