The Blowback Protocol

by Lars Emmerich

  The driver obliged. He slowed, took the corner a little too slowly for Grange’s taste, and continued down the side street. The van bounced and jostled as the street devolved to little more than a potholed alleyway. “How much further?” the driver wanted to know.

  “Right here is fine,” Grange said.

  The driver stopped.

  Grange reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a pistol, and shot the driver in the neck. The man died instantly.

  Grange got out of the van and disappeared into the darkness.

  49

  They commandeered a car from the airport parking lot. Stole it, really. An unsavory act no matter what you called it, but it had to be done. Renting a car was out of the question. It would require a credit card, which was a monumental risk. Sam couldn’t fetch her own car, because the feds undoubtedly had its GPS tagged and remotely monitored. She and Hayward briefly considered calling a cab, but it was too easy to fall prey to a man-in-the-middle scheme. There was the subway option, but it was also a non-starter. There were video cameras covering just about every nook and cranny in the city’s subway system, and it would have been impossible to keep their faces hidden from all of them. The District’s facial-recognition system would make George Orwell blush, and Sam hadn’t flown all the way back to the States just to wind up in jail.

  So, once again, crime ended up being the answer, and Sam plied her lock-picking skills—byproduct of a misspent youth, reinforced by her field training—to get inside an old land barge undoubtedly owned by an elderly couple. The backseat was outfitted with a clothes rod supporting hangers full of garments that had been in and out of fashion at least twice, some of them maybe three times.

  “Nice ride,” Hayward said as Sam connected the ignition leads and pumped the gas a bit. The oversized engine cranked right up, and the radio came to life at volumes suitable to entertain deaf and dead alike. Easy listening. Sam wouldn’t have bet there was still an easy listening station left on the planet, but Neil Diamond’s dulcet tones provided the existence proof. She found the power button and pressed it with prejudice.

  She took the parking lot stub from its position on the dash and checked the date. The car had been in the lot for four days. She hoped the elderly jetsetters were on an extended journey. She wondered whether she’d be able to return the car to the lot before the couple returned from their trip.

  She waved her federal ID at the parking attendant. He waved her through without so much as a nod.

  “Now is as good a time as any,” Sam said to Hayward.

  Hayward nodded. “Probably best to do it while we’re on the move.” She saw him reach into his pocket, power up his burner phone, and dial a number from memory. He put the phone on speaker.

  Sam listened as she drove the sedan. It rang four times, then there was a heavy clunk, then an unnerving silence that lasted only a second or two but felt much longer, followed by five more rings. Then a click.

  “I wondered when you would call,” a voice said. It sounded like liquid malevolence and made Sam’s skin crawl.

  “You violated our agreement, Grange,” Hayward said.

  Artemis Grange, Sam thought. He sounded just as creepy as his reputation.

  “The situation evolved,” Grange said. “I made adjustments.” Sam heard openness and outdoor sounds in the background. Wind, traffic, footfalls, and heavy breathing suggested the man was walking quickly.

  “You could have called,” Hayward said.

  “I chose not to.”

  “What you’re doing is unconscionable, Grange,” Hayward said. “I want Katrin and Joao set free. They’ve done nothing to deserve what you’ve done to them.”

  Sam heard a cold chuckle through the tinny speakers. “How quaint, and how very ironic,” Grange said. “A lecture about justice from a traitor and a murderer.”

  Hayward’s jaw clenched and she feared he would say something rash, but he held his tongue. He took a deep breath and said, “I have what you want. You have what I want. There’s no reason we can’t work this out.”

  “What makes you believe that we haven’t achieved an important breakthrough with our Spanish guests?” Grange said.

  Sam glanced at Hayward. His chest heaved and his hands trembled. He was undoubtedly imagining what a breakthrough with Joao and Katrin might have entailed. She knew what the Agency was capable of, and she shuddered at the thought.

  Hayward regained his composure. “You haven’t achieved a breakthrough, Grange. You’re still at square one,” he said, but he didn’t sound convinced himself.

  “Ah, but you’re wrong,” Grange said. “As you well know, every man has a limit to the pain he can bear. Every young woman, too.”

  Hayward said nothing. Sam looked over and saw the color drain from his face. She reached over and grabbed his hand.

  A long silence passed. “Prove it,” Hayward finally said, a glimmer of resolve in his voice. “Prove you have the ChemEspaña data.”

  Sam heard no more footsteps in the background. Grange had stopped walking and his breathing had slowed.

  “Tell me the title and revision number of the computer file,” Hayward pressed.

  Grange didn’t answer.

  “You don’t have the data,” Hayward said. “You sliced Maria’s wrist and bled her to death and all along she had the goddamn formula buried in her leg, but you weren’t smart enough to figure it out.”

  Grange was silent.

  “And you’re not smart enough to figure out that Joao and Katrin are stronger than you are,” Hayward said. “They knew what they were doing when they sent me to Singapore to break into an empty safe, and they knew what it would cost them. They believe in something bigger than themselves, and they will go to the grave with their secret. You’re not going to get a damned thing from them.”

  Grange said nothing and the silence grew heavy.

  “Listen, Grange. I’ll give you something else,” Hayward said. “Something you want and need.”

  “I’m listening.”

  Hayward took a breath. “I will come in, Grange.”

  Sam’s eyes snapped to Hayward’s face. It looked tired and resigned. She squeezed his hand, shook her head. Don’t do this, she mouthed, but he waved her off. She pulled the big car over to the side of the road and stopped.

  “I’ll come in,” Hayward said again. “I’ll give you the data, and you can do whatever you want with me. Just let them go, Grange. Don’t kill them. You don’t fucking need to kill them.”

  Seconds passed. Sam heard static on the line and watched Hayward’s face. It was pained and determined and exhausted and resigned and hopeful all at once. If it was an act for her benefit, she decided, it was the best acting she’d ever seen.

  Grange broke the silence. “I accept your offer,” he said. “You and the data in exchange for the chemist and the girl.”

  Sam squeezed Hayward’s hand again, shaking her head, but Hayward ignored her.

  “I need proof of life,” Hayward said.

  “Of course.”

  “Use the same email address,” Hayward said. “And tell me where to find them.”

  “I will send instructions,” Grange replied. Then the line went dead.

  50

  Artemis Grange took the Blue Line south. He watched the Arlington Cemetery and Pentagon stops go by. He sat impassively, spine erect, eyes forward, feet flat on the floor, hands in his lap, neutral expression on his face. It was an utterly conspicuous pose. No normal person in the modern Western world sat like that, but Artemis Grange was no normal person.

  The Pentagon City stop came and went, then Crystal City. The subway doors opened and Grange stood up and exited the train in a single fluid movement. He found the appropriate stairway and emerged onto the street.

  Crystal City was little more than overflow office space for the Pentagon. It was chockfull of military officers and even more retired military officers who either worked in the government’s gargantuan civilian workforce or earned twice the
government salary by working for one of the myriad defense contractors.

  Here, a man like Grange wasn’t entirely conspicuous. He had never served in the military, but he had a military bearing about him. He certainly had a killer’s coldness in his eyes that was disturbing in other environments but not so disturbing around other trigger-pullers.

  Grange had chosen the spot with a purpose. He walked with the brisk pace and practiced self-absorption endemic to the District. He made eye contact with no one. His heels clicked on the sidewalk. His arms swung too little for the size of his steps. He covered more ground with each step than seemed probable. It was as though he alone was walking on a moving sidewalk while the rest of humanity had no assistance.

  As he walked, his mind churned. He thought about Hayward’s words. He thought about what Senator Oren Stanley had said, and about what he had refused to say. He thought about Alexander Wells’s lie. He thought about Joao Ferdinand-Xavier, ChemEspaña, and the chemical formula that would uncork the genie’s bottle. He thought about risk, calculated and otherwise, and about exposure. There were still too many loose ends.

  He thought about the wild card. Grange knew her by reputation. Flawed, disobedient, insubordinate, over-the-top, ballsy. Her fire-red hair and blazing green eyes said it all. She would free him or destroy him. The middle ground seemed to hold no probability whatsoever. He would, of course, engineer the most favorable set of circumstances.

  Grange arrived at a mid-rise office complex on Crystal Drive. He walked down the automobile ramp to the parking garage, found the 2005 Toyota Camry registered to someone who had never existed, inserted the key, and soon found himself southbound on the Jefferson Davis Parkway.

  He moved effortlessly through traffic. He was alert for followers, though he knew that spotting a properly resourced tail team was next to impossible. His mind returned to the loose ends. There were dozens, but the most pressing problem had to be dealt with immediately.

  He opened the glove compartment and retrieved the Glock 20. It was chambered in 10mm, the same diameter as a .40 caliber round but with more propellant behind it. The slug flew faster and made a bigger mess. Plenty of stopping power. Not that the extra oomph would be necessary, but current circumstances notwithstanding, Grange liked to make sure little was left to chance.

  The drive took a little over half an hour. Grange turned east off Highway One onto the 242. He drove out onto a peninsula of land jutting into the Potomac River called Mason Neck. Gunston Cove was on the north and east. Belmont Bay bordered the peninsula to the south and west.

  The scenery turned pastoral and the road narrowed. The houses and lots grew larger and sparser. Grange passed a horse stable on the left and took the next right. The two-lane road followed a canal leading to the river, became a dirt path, and terminated at the front door of a stately home that could have been transplanted from a cotton plantation.

  Grange opened the door to the house with a key from his pocket. He stepped inside and smelled dust, mold, sweat, and urine . . . not unusual for these kinds of circumstances.

  A large man in cargo pants with four days of growth on his face met Grange in the foyer. The large man recognized Grange and his posture changed. He stood up straight. He put a mildly obsequious expression on his face. “Sir,” he said.

  Grange walked past the man as if he didn’t exist. “Report, please,” he said.

  Cargo Pants obliged. “Vitals are steady for both. Psychological indicators are becoming critical. They’ve stopped eating. The old man stopped bargaining three days ago. The girl became indifferent to penetration within the last two days. They’ve both asked for a bullet to the head.”

  Grange nodded. “Results?”

  Cargo Pants shook his head. “My assessment is we’ve gotten everything we’re going to get.”

  “Everything but what I asked you to get,” Grange said. Cargo Pants didn’t answer. “Who else is with you?”

  “Some guy on loan from the Farm,” Cargo Pants said.

  “Take me to see them.”

  Cargo Pants led Grange out the back door of the house and around to the side. A cobblestone path led to a standalone workshop, tucked away between the large home and the thick forest. Cargo Pants produced a key and unlocked the door.

  The smell hit Grange first. Cloying, visceral, fecal. Biology in extremis. If fear and desperation had olfactory qualities, this was what they would smell like. “You’ve left nothing to chance,” Grange observed.

  “Tried just about everything,” Cargo Pants said.

  Grange nodded. His eyes adjusted. He found himself in a dark hallway. The workshop was divided into smaller rooms, each with its own steel door. A man in khakis sat on a folding chair, assault rifle across his hip, futzing with his telephone. Cargo Pants released the padlock on one of the interior cells. He opened the heavy steel door. The hinges protested.

  The stench intensified. Grange entered the room and regarded the two heaps of humanity curled up on the floor. The girl was naked, chained to the wall by her ankles. There was blood all over her face and between her legs. The man was bound by his wrists. His shirt was stained dark crimson. His pants were soiled.

  They looked up at Grange. Their faces held the profound indifference of the damned. The man muttered something in a language Grange didn’t recognize. The girl said nothing. Her eyes were already dead.

  Grange knew he would get nothing further from them.

  “Newspaper,” he said.

  Cargo Pants handed him today’s edition. He plopped it on the floor next to the girl, filmed a little video, then did the same with the man.

  Then he pulled his pistol, aimed, and squeezed the trigger twice. He quickly moved his sights to the remaining target and fired two more rounds. The sharp odor of oxidized propellant hid the smell of blood and sweat and shit.

  Four rounds. Two fewer loose ends.

  51

  Sam and Hayward visited a computer store. It was decked out in early super-sleek, all glass and polished wood minimalism. Salespeople wore the obligatory über-cool monochrome tee and jeans and had various electronic gadgets strapped to their persons.

  Sam tried to slow her heart rate. Her stomach felt queasy. She fought the urge to look over her shoulder every other second. Do I look nervous? Probably. She sure as hell felt nervous. Perhaps it had something to do with the all-points bulletin circulating the United States with her mug on it.

  Sam didn’t like the lack of customers in the store. It was too easy to stand out, even with the ball cap pulled low over her eyes and her red locks covered by a dark brown wig.

  Hayward wasn’t fond of the idea either, but there were few alternatives in the modern world. You certainly couldn’t use your own computer. The feds had figured out how to outsmart the obscuration programs. It wasn’t real-time, but they could pinpoint your location in a matter of hours. Internet cafés had gone the way of the dodo, and federal institutions had long ago wised up to the library trick. They had tracking software running in the background of just about every computer in just about every library in the country. In fact, the founder of a famous underground Internet shopping site had met his fate via a library Wi-Fi system.

  “Just browsing,” Sam said to the über-eager clerk who sidled up with a too-easy and too-greasy greeting. The clerk adhered to his training, which meant he didn’t take the hint to buzz off, but few people could wear annoyance as convincingly as Sam. The clerk soon busied himself elsewhere.

  Hayward found a sleek-looking Apple knockoff and typed a memorized IP address into the browser window.

  Sam’s nervousness intensified. She walked casually away while the browser page loaded. She didn’t want to draw attention to whatever might appear on the screen, and she wanted to appear as though she really was browsing. She wandered to an adjacent table and fondled the products idly while Hayward typed his authentication credentials.

  Sam couldn’t see Hayward’s computer monitor, but she knew the page had loaded. His body tensed
and his face lost its color. His eyes glistened. His jaw clenched and one hand closed into a white-knuckled fist.

  Sam returned to Hayward’s side. She had to stifle a gasp. A video loop was playing. Two torture victims, one male and the other female. Their bodies were in terrible shape. The girl had been violated. Sam could see in the victims’ eyes that the spark of life had been beaten out of them. They were as close to dead as anyone she’d ever seen. They had given up hope, and the end was just around the corner. Say what you wanted about the spiritual side of things, but when a person lost interest in living, they didn’t tend to hang around much longer.

  She put her hand on Hayward’s back. She wanted to say something comforting, but nothing came to mind that didn’t feel trite or hackneyed. She settled for silence.

  He wiped tears from his eyes and got to work. Sam would have employed Dan for what came next, but she couldn’t risk involving him. Calling via burner from halfway around the globe was one thing, but calling from within the city would have been madness. She was also afraid of getting Dan collared for aiding and abetting.

  Hayward pecked away, sparing occasional furtive glances in the direction of the clerk, hoping no one would notice the green font against a black background that indicated Hayward was somewhere deep in cyberspace.

  He accessed a decryption program available on the Dark Web. It was probably invented by someone in the US government but subsequently stolen and disseminated, for a tidy profit of course, by a Russian hacker. The program exploited a trapdoor in every digital photography and video device. The trapdoor was mandated by the federal government. There was a war on terror going on, etcetera, and you couldn’t be too careful. Liberty was nice, but security was necessary, so security won every time.

  The trapdoor did the following: it ensured that regardless of the device’s settings, any digital video or photograph taken by any device sold in the United States contained the precise location where the video or photo was shot. The latitude and longitude were encoded and the data was embedded inside the digital pixels.