At Risk

by Inc. Thriller Writers

  The little girl in the photo wasn’t Angela.

  She’d been someone, though.

  Beth slid into the seat Bristol had vacated so abruptly, smothering her own shock.

  “Print it out,” I said. “Headers, route info, everything. Get one of the tech guys in here and freeze that computer.” I was aware she knew procedure, but I couldn’t seem to stop talking.

  She glanced at Jeff. “For the interim,” he said softly, covering his own emotions, “in this area, if it comes from Nicholas, it comes from Almighty God. Okay?”

  She nodded, and a couple of mouse clicks later, she handed me the papers.

  I took the last page, the one with the photograph on it, and without looking deliberately fed it into a nearby shredder.

  I just needed a copy of the email to work from, and had no desire to see that image again in this lifetime.

  What was left was:

  From: 2clvr4u@whitehorehouse.gov

  Subject: If You Think I’m Kidding

  Date: October 31, 5:25:47 AM PST

  Received: from xm 2120.in.gotcha.com

  (xm2.in-fec.whodaman.iamyerdaddy.com([218.41])

  Bristol came back, looking embarrassed.

  No one said a word about what had happened.

  “He’s clever,” I said. “It says ‘whitehorehouse’ instead of ‘whitehouse.’”

  “Which means?” Beth asked.

  “He’s routing all over the place, but skilled enough to do his own headers,” I told her. “He’s making all this up in the original email. By the time it reaches us, it’s so scrambled there’s no telling where it came from.”

  “Anything else?”

  “He’s having fun, being cute,” I said. “He wants us to know he’s smarter than we are, there’s nothing we can do. His kung fu is better than ours. We can use that against him.”

  I headed for a private area. “I need a secure network line,” I told Jeff over my shoulder. “No firewall, total isolation. I need room to move.”

  Beth followed me. “You’re on to something.”

  “Maybe, but not enough to go into it yet.”

  She leaned against a desk, folded her arms and looked at me. Almost as tall as me, stunningly beautiful, cheekbones that could cut diamonds. “Nicholas, right now, I’m willing to listen if you tell me it’s invaders from Mars.”

  “How did we get here?” I asked her as I set my case on the table.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Last time I saw you,” I said, unpacking my laptop, “you were going to be an actress.”

  She bit back a laugh. “I was an actress. Two straight-to-video slasher movies. Victim Number Four in the first one, the Unsuspecting Wife in the second.”

  “Have to start somewhere.”

  “No nudity limited my options,” she said. “I realized it wasn’t for me, so I went back to Virginia, finished law school and applied to the Bureau.”

  “No nudity?” I echoed. “I don’t recall you as the shy type.”

  Her cheeks reddened. “You were an exception. In a lot of ways.” She stared at me for a moment, and then said, “I transferred to Quantico a year ago. Here I am.”

  “Older yet wiser, one assumes.”

  She neatly turned the tables. “And you? When did you change your name?”

  “The day we signed the papers, I came back for a bit. If your last name’s Bianco and you call Vegas home, people jump to wrong conclusions,” I said as I powered up the computer. “Moved to Houston a while back. I came back this week on vacation.”

  “Just happened to be here?”

  “Pretty much, yes. Ironic, isn’t it?”

  “Are you married?” she asked, ignoring my comment.

  “One broken heart per lifetime is sufficient, thank you.”

  “Nicholas…”

  “I’m sorry, that was out of line,” I said. “Ancient history.”

  Silence hung between us for a moment.

  “You’ve done well,” she said. “I’m surprised we haven’t crossed paths before.”

  “It’s a big Bureau,” I replied, not looking at her. “I’ve had some luck.”

  “I’d say better than ‘luck,’” she said. “You’re famous.”

  “Damn, I was going for infamous.”

  “They talk about you around here like you walk on water. Jeff said you’re one of the best cyberslingers he’s ever known.”

  “One of?” I repeated. “Can you imagine that?”

  She shook her head slowly. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

  I turned to face her. “How about we talk about this over dinner before you go back?”

  “Don’t waste your breath, Nicholas,” she said firmly. “We are not getting back together after all this time.”

  “Never even occurred to me.” Innocence personified. “Dinner. Nothing more.”

  “We’ll see.”

  I didn’t look at her as I connected the secure line to the laptop. “He’s hopscotching on their systems and bouncing the signal around on a VWAN.”

  “In English?”

  “Sorry,” I said, covering both subjects. “Virtual Wide Area Networks communicate over the same line, but each one is a separate and distinct entity.”

  “Like that movie last year?” she asked, mentioning a popular film where a glamorously beautiful FBI agent had her life invaded by a serial killer. In the movie, the bad guy controlled her home, car and life via the internet. What I remembered most about that movie was laughing a lot at the technology.

  “Sure. Like the BAU has its own G-5 to fly from case to case,” I said, referring to a weekly television series where a team of stunningly attractive “profilers” has a private jet at their immediate disposal.

  She laughed. “If we leave the office, we practically hitchhike.”

  “Be nice if life worked the way it does in the movies.”

  She said nothing for a moment, then, “What are you thinking?”

  “Buckingham’s and Altair’s are a few hundred yards apart,” I said, working the keyboard. “The Vesuvius is the point of the triangle. Ask Bristol to work that.”

  “Why him?”

  “He’s embarrassed.”

  “He just became a father,” she said. “I think he’s reevaluating his career choice.” She paused. “You were pretty calm.”

  “I’ve seen worse.”

  “Worse?”

  “How long have you been with the BAU?”

  “Two years.”

  “Then you know it can be an ugly world out there.”

  She didn’t reply directly to that. “Anything else?”

  “An IV line of coffee would be good.”

  She smiled. “As I said, you haven’t changed one bit. I was going to find some myself. Still take it black?”

  “Please.”

  I saw her put her hand on Bristol’s shoulder, lean down and speak to him. When she walked away, the color was coming back into his face.

  I brought up a program that wasn’t supposed to exist, and launched it. The tracer lines formed on the screen.

  Someone shouted from the other room. The video feed was active again.

  Angela sat quietly, the fear in her eyes reaching through the screen. The kidnapper was now wearing a full-head Count Dracula mask.

  Good, I thought. He’s cocky enough to play with us.

  He picked up the microphone again. I got closer to the screen.

  No wires.

  I turned back to the desk, lost in thought.

  “What is that?” Beth asked as she set a cup of coffee on the desk, looking at my screen.

  “I call it Piranha.”

  “And it does wha
t?”

  “Hunts. Like piranha up a river.”

  Agent Bristol came into the room, holding a sheet of paper. He handed me a printout. “One of the other guys has been tracing IP addresses and the physical locations,” he said.

  I took a quick look at it. “Give all this to SAC Keyes,” I said to him, handing it back, “and get some agents down there. Contact the network admins of those hotels. We’ll need their help. You go with them.”

  “Me, sir?”

  “You. I want someone I can count on ramrodding this.”

  Bristol looked at me for a moment. “Yes, sir.”

  “No need to call me sir,” I said. “I’m not your boss.”

  “I realize that,” he said as he left the room.

  His words hung in the air for a moment.

  Beth turned to me. “That was nice of you.”

  I shrugged it off. “He’s not the first guy who booted over a photo like that. He won’t be the last. The day you stop being sickened is the day to get out.”

  “I sent it to Quantico to see if they could identify it,” she said.

  The Justice Department keeps a running database of obscene and violent photographs confiscated over the years. If there was a match, they could solve an old case.

  Or they’d be forced to open a new one.

  I started yet another program. “He’s wireless.”

  “We know that.”

  “We also know things most people don’t. A wireless device, like a camera or microphone, is a device we can find.”

  “You can do that?” She sounded like I was telling her there really were invaders from Mars involved in this.

  “Connecting via wireless shows up on a scan of said network. He’s piggybacking off three we know of. We should be able to isolate this down to a few hundred feet.”

  She said nothing.

  “The problem is,” I continued, “I’ve got to catch him in progress.”

  “Okay. And?”

  “He’s rerouting every time.” I paused for a moment. “Can we get a screen in here? It would help if we could see it real time.”

  Beth didn’t waste time asking questions, just walked out to arrange it. She came right back. “Five minutes.”

  “What was in his last message?”

  “Bidding is now at three hundred million dollars, traced to a cybercafé in Kabul.”

  “Better and better.”

  “Sometimes,” she said, “this is a game of patience.”

  “Sometimes, people die while we’re waiting.”

  She didn’t reply.

  * * *

  Bristol and his team were now within shouting distance of the area we’d identified, waiting for the signal that would send them into action. More than fourteen hours since Jeff had called me.

  Just give me one shot, you sick bastard. Just one.

  As if he heard me, the screen in the room came to life. Angela looked okay physically, but the fear in her eyes was a tangible thing, so tangible it reached into my chest and squeezed.

  It was a Wolfman mask this time.

  Hang on, baby, I told her in my mind. We’ll find you. I promise.

  “Pay attention now, people!” he crowed through the voice distorter. “Bidding is now two billion dollars. That’s BILLION. Auction is ending shortly, so get your bids in now!”

  He rattled on. I tuned him out and frantically smacked keys. I had one good shot at finding him, if that. One.

  A flash of light, a flicker, and it was on my screen.

  Beth was waiting, encrypted radio in her hand.

  “Fremont and Main,” I told her. “Close to the Gold Dust Saloon.”

  She paused. “How solid is that?”

  “Ninety-nine point nine.” She relayed the information to Bristol.

  Jeff came into the room. “Did we get him?”

  “I think so.” I stood. “Let’s go.”

  “Go where?” Jeff asked.

  “There.”

  They both got quiet. Very quiet.

  The authority in Jeff asserted itself. “Nicholas, you can’t do th—”

  “Don’t waste my time.” I held up my car keys. “I go with you, or I go on my own. Either way.”

  Jeff hesitated a moment longer, then called to get a car.

  * * *

  The Downtown Experience was in full swing.

  The after-work crowd was around, heading for the bars and nearby clubs. Tourists gawked and gaped at the flashing neon above them. It was a far cry from what I remembered growing up, but what was not?

  Jeff nodded his head as we got out, and Bristol walked over from where he’d been standing, trying to appear relaxed.

  “Unless we can do a floor-by-floor search of these buildings, we’re screwed.” Bristol’s frustration was apparent.

  I let my eyes roam everywhere and nowhere, drawing in all the information I could. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I’d know it when I saw it. She was here, she had to be.

  I just had to find her.

  Jeff turned. “Bristol, you’re with me. Beth, you and Nicholas look around. Discreetly. We don’t want to spook this guy.”

  Beth linked her arm through mine, instantly turning us into a couple out for a stroll. Her touch went through me like a jolt of electricity. In reflex, I shoved the old memories away and concentrated on the task at hand.

  We walked along, pretending to be noticing nothing but each other. There had to be an answer, there had to be.

  We walked down one side of the street, crossed at an intersection, then back. All three hotels were within line of sight. I smiled to myself as we walked past where the Sunset Theatre used to be. I’d spent most of my youth in that movie house, watching films so atrocious drive-ins rejected them.

  I stopped.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Do you still smoke?”

  “No. Why?”

  “So I’m not standing here doing nothing,” I said.

  Sandwiched between Altair’s and Buckingham’s, two of the older hotels, was a small alleyway. Off to the side, an almost-hidden doorway to an office building. If you didn’t know it was there, you’d never see it. It looked like a remnant from the 1950s, which it probably was. A sign posted read Second Floor Loft Available.

  I tried the front door.

  It opened.

  Beth grabbed my sleeve.

  “Nicholas, we can’t just barge in there.”

  “You can’t.” I smiled at her. “I’m not an FBI Agent. Just a private citizen.”

  “Dammit, Nicholas.”

  “Just a look-see, I promise.”

  “Christ, no wonder Jeff warned me about you.”

  “As if you forgot,” I said as I entered the small lobby. Three floors. The first and third floors listed a small law firm and a dentist, respectively. Lights were on in both offices; people were still there.

  I headed up the stairs to the empty second floor. Beth started to say something unladylike, then reached under her jacket and drew her service pistol. Her left hand held the encrypted radio she’d brought from the office. “Turn that down,” I whispered as I went up the stairs. “If you hear anything, call the cavalry and charge.”

  I took off my safari jacket and slightly tore my shirt pocket. A couple of pens I’d stuck in there flopped down, held in place by their clips. I wished I had a pocket protector and some ugly eyeglasses, but I was improvising.

  The hallway was a little better lighted than I’d hoped, but the point of no return was in the rearview mirror now. I stopped in front of the big steel door on the second floor and knocked.

  Knocked again, harder.

  There was faint, very faint, shuffling inside.


  I whammed the door as hard as I could in an effort to provoke a response. Social Engineering for Dummies 101: make enough noise, human nature will respond.

  A voice from inside growled, “Yeah?”

  “Frass mublenore, sir, I need vam moments of your time.” I deliberately made up nonsense words and slurred my speech, making it impossible to understand.

  “Fuck off.”

  A little girl’s life was at stake, and I was betting one hell of a bluff on an empty hand.

  “Ah, sir, please. My sobbs tells me I have to get my zumblekoms up. Frashawanna, I won’t leak five numblety of your time.”

  “I said get lost!”

  “Sir, if I can treak to you, I’ll keep my bojalam,” I said, putting a whine in my voice. “Mlease.”

  Silence.

  “Sir?”

  More silence.

  “Sir?” I tried again, pounding on the door. Enough noise, and anyone in the building would get curious. He couldn’t afford curious neighbors.

  Come on, I thought, open the door and send the pain in the ass away. Come on. You’re human. Everyone else is stupid, beneath you. You’re superior, do it just to get rid of me. Come on, one little click.

  Silence.

  I thought I’d blown it. A small panel in the door suddenly slid open, startling me, and a pair of eyes glared out. I tried to look as inoffensive as possible, slouching my shoulders, forcing my stomach out.

  The man who opened the door looked average in every possible way. Stare at him for an hour, you couldn’t describe him a minute later.

  “What?”

  I lowered my voice and mumbled more nonsense, fumbling for a moment. “I’m busy,” he said.

  “I understand that, sir, and I appreciate your time,” I said as I tried to see inside without being obvious. “If I could just….”

  There was a slipper on the floor. A child’s slipper.

  With a cartoon tiger on it.

  Winnie the Pooh…

  And Tigger, too!

  Sometimes, the most outrageous gambit pays off.

  “I asked you a question,” I heard him say. “Who the hell are you?”

  My foot lashed out in a heartfelt and sincere effort to blast his testicles through his nostrils. “I’m Van Helsing, Monster Boy!” There was a satisfying thud as my foot connected.